


The Places We Call Home

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Clan warfare, Drinking, Foxes, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kissing, Kitsune, Liberal use of mythology, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Referenced Genocide, Rimming, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Tengu, War, Youkai, celestial beings - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-07 23:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 74,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15918138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: There have always been layers to the world. Keith exists in the human one, though he’s nothing like the humans he’s come to know. For one, all of them believe that foxes are merely foxes, the cute subjects of documentaries and plush toys. A human did not turn into a fox, and a fox had no way to become human. Which is why Keith doesn’t talk about his runs through the woods or his raids on nearby farmhouses when his bank account starts to get low on funds.That is until a night raid goes wrong and his saving grace comes in the form of Takashi Shirogane, a thousand-year-old kitsune, messenger of the gods and a guardian of the balance between the realms. Keith hadn’t believed in any of those things either until Shiro shows him the intricacies of the Yōkai realm and how easily the balance of power can be tipped by a demon clan hellbent on subjugating all their kind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to 2018's Sheith Big Bang! This one kind of got away on me and ended up a lot longer than anticipated, so I hope you'll bear with me as I work to get each chapter up. Also, I do beg forgiveness for my use of mythology here as I borrowed a bit from what I researched and played around with the concepts some. I hope you find the results enjoyable, though!
> 
> And as always you can come yell at me over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ByMidnightFlame)!
> 
> One of my artists have also posted: you can see the piece on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/maplebardraws/status/1037942202490544128) or on [Tumbrl](http://ghostiekins.tumblr.com/post/177826322868/the-places-we-called-home-by-midnightflame-shiro)! Please go show it some love!
> 
> My second artist was finally able to post! Please check out their pieces, which you can see here over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/BrookeStardust/status/1038989424560877569)!

The night air sings with summer. It’s heavy, still in the process of shucking off the day’s humidity, and flooded with the calls of cicadas defying the heat. Louder here, even on the outskirts of the forest, with barely a breeze to ruffle hair. Maybe one would call it oppressive, too noisy to think by, but Keith likes this time of the year best. It drives humans into the comfort of their air-conditioned homes, sneaking out only for various duties as dictated by necessity. Going to work, hanging the laundry, pulling down the laundry when the clouds grew thick with thunder and rain.

Taking out the trash.

What humans consider trash is something of a marvel to him. They’d toss out any number of things for any number of reasons. Sure, there’s the obvious waste items - a used tissue, a toilet paper roll run down to its cardboard bones, a yogurt cup emptied of everything but the barest scraps of its former contents. But then there are the other things. A sweatshirt (apparently it smelled too much like the ex-lover who had worn it). Novels, a bit beaten around the edges, but with no pages missing and hardly a stain to discolor their words. The dog with a few minor training issues (it roamed the area farms like a gun for hire now). A toaster. An easel. An entire box of still-capped pens. A whole list of excuses for why some things are clutter and other items are worth repurposing or refashioning or whatever it is that humans use to classify the things that still held value to them.

The thing Keith can’t get over, and he considers it part of his good fortune, is how a craving for pizza led to a perfectly good roast chicken getting tossed into the garbage bin outside. Maybe it has something to do with the twittering the farmhouse occupants called conversation but sounded to him more like squawks and chirps of excitement, all of which eventually fell to laughter as more silver-coated cans were pulled from the fridge. New things always tended to dazzle, and the opening of an Aoki’s pizza store had managed to make most of the area’s residents forget they had cooked for themselves for generations. 

Keith also knows the drunker someone is, the more dazzling the world can seem. Even the deepest rooted of angers within it. It’s the only way he could explain why some people exploded like hastily lit fireworks when liquor overran their blood. 

Ah, but back to the chicken. That’s what had pulled him here in the first place, luring him from the depths of the forest and putting a stomach-eating ache into his core. He’s been subsisting on bugs and the random field mouse over the last few nights, all while contemplating a return back to the town and the apartment that had less appeal to it than a lunch of frogs and beetles. This chicken, though it’s been sitting in the garbage for the better part of an hour now, still smells damn delicious. With a tip of his nose into the wind, Keith can tell it also had an entourage of vegetables to go along with it, all with that slight crisp-not-burnt edge to it that lets him know it had been cooked to near perfection. 

An honest waste really. Or it would have been if not for his arrival. 

He waits, even as hunger tells him to charge in and all hell be damned about it. But he had caught bits of conversation snatched by the wind and knew that a delivery scooter would be making its way up the road any moment now. For the time being, he settles down in the uncut grass at the periphery of the farmhouse. (A luxury getaway they had started to call it, nestled in the countryside though only a stone’s throw from the town, which had its own quaint charms touted across the internet. Even if it had started to feel as though everything small and far from the hustle-and-bustle of modern cities was called _quaint_ now, like that could somehow solve all the world’s problems. As if the small and quaint didn’t suffer from their own prejudices and issues. . but at least they weren’t your prejudices and issues.) Keith had considered the potential of raiding the chicken coop upon his arrival, when the humans had still been loitering on the back veranda, the butts of their cigarettes flashing like enraged fireflies through the night air. But they had eventually returned inside with complaints of the heat and promises of cold beer.

All thoughts of the chicken coop had then been tucked away in the back of his mind. A file card slid under his _Locations to Remember When Starving_ tab.

His ears prick forward as the rumble of a motor roars over the cicada’s evening hymn. After another moment, a single headlight flashes along the road coming from the east. Several moments after that, Keith detects the scent of melted cheese, garlic and teriyaki sauce. His jaw drops open at the smell, slowly combining with the roasted chicken and its vegetable companions, and he begins to pant, tongue lolling more in anticipation than from the heat.

Once the pass off is made, and the household members have settled in for their night of pizza, drinking, and whatever drama is headlining that evening, Keith plans to make his move. The trick is always getting the lid off, but he hopes that in their half-inebriated state, they had left him a little leverage for sliding it off. He licks at his lips, then takes several creeping steps forward until his nose pokes through the grassy cover he had hidden himself away in. There’s still an entire yard between him and the backside of the house. In that span of ground, several plots have been carefully carved out with neat little signs advertising what had been planted there. The tomatoes have a little tomato sign, the cucumbers their own cucumber mascot and the carrots theirs as well. It’s the daikon that has the most robust sign, large and smiling across at its neighbor, the onions. Lined up against the back veranda, there are several large planters housing various herbs, all leafy green and spilling their various scents into the air like the secrets of a well-seasoned life. 

A little further, to the west of the house, is where the chicken coop sits. It’s not a large structure, but it houses a good handful of chicken and one colorful rooster who never quite raises the dawn as he should. Keith doesn’t know if he lacked that vital bit of knowledge that all roosters are expected to carry or if he simply didn’t give a shit about whether or not the world woke when the sun did. He would crow at the oddest of moments though. Like right before a storm swept through the valley or those times when the whole world went still, cicadas and all. Maybe he figured that is the best time to be heard. Or maybe he really is that daft. 

Keith kind of liked him though. In the case of starvation, he had marked that rooster for last on his menu. 

The scooter finally pulls up to the house. Before the driver can get to the door, one member of the household, a tall, lanky man with his hair pulled back, and his blue checkered button-down flayed open to expose a crisp white undershirt, runs out to greet him. Money is exchanged, the pizza is handed over, and the man disappears into the house while the driver fits his helmet back over his head. Keith watches it all, impatience encouraging his tail tip to twitch. 

Sometimes, life simply doesn’t move fast enough.

He clacks his teeth as the driver sits on his scooter, his index finger dancing over his phone screen. Checking messages, scanning one app or another. Eating up precious time with his inability to check-out from his phone. Keith had left his back at his apartment. Whether he remembered to keep it charging or not. . .he doesn’t actually remember. But it's better than replacing it, which is what he had to do with the last one. Ziplock bags are great at protecting things (like keys and wallets, cell phones and all the other various sundry items that frequented jean and jacket pockets alike) from the elements, but they can't save them from accidents of fate. Like rogue mudslides that carried your belongings out into the road to be crushed under squealing car tires. 

Since then, Keith had learned to keep his valuables locked up in the (relative) safety of his apartment and only stored the necessities out in the wilds. Besides, the world had existed long before cell phones came along to foster human addiction and carpal tunnel syndrome. He can make due without his for however long he deems necessary. 

Which is never too long, no more than a week or two at most. Rent had to be paid, and that required a job, most of which required human hands to perform and a human smile to sell and human language to turn services into cash. For now, though, Keith sheds his human thoughts and focuses on the scent still staining the air and tantalizing his senses.

Things are easier like this. He. Himself. The Big but Reliable Alone. 

His ears flick back and forth, tips tickled by wayward fireflies. They tend to dance deeper in the forest, entire armies of them signaling through the night air with their SOS flashes lighting up the shadows. As if somewhere, in that whole ocean of them, they might find that one single entity who hears their distress call and answers it. Not with sympathy or pity or thoughts of salvation that might elevate them to cosmic sainthood (because maybe God didn’t hear about the good deeds of insects but the universe could). No, the answer would come out of love and nothing more. 

Just a chance meeting there in the dark.

The driver finally tucks his phone into his jacket pocket, and with a clearing of his throat, he takes off down the road once more to where the town’s lights glow a dusky yellow in the distance. Keith flattens himself against the earth and begins his crawl forward. He navigates the shadows like a dolphin does the midnight seas, cutting through them seamlessly and with innate purpose. Only once does he pause, when he hears laughter boom close at hand. It startles him just like lightning cracking open storm-empty skies. Keith glances toward the back of the house, hoping he’s concealed well enough between the tomato plants, and finds the man who had met the pizza delivery guy dragging a chair from the kitchen into the main living area. Or so Keith suspects. He’s never been inside, but once you’ve seen the layout of one house, you generally have enough knowledge to surmise the designs of many others. 

Perhaps he’s wrong in that, but what does that really matter to him at this moment?

It doesn’t. 

He remains there, pressed to the ground with his tail curled tight around him and his ears rolled out flat as pastry dough against his head, until the laughter kicks up again, more muffled now. That’s when he begins to creep forward once more. Insistency takes his feet as his confidence in his aloneness picks itself back up, and before he knows it, he’s trotting towards the garbage bin with his nose to the wind and a grin pulling at his muzzle. 

_Bingo._

Sometimes, the air surrounding an easy meal tastes almost as good as the meal itself. It’s freedom, sweet as yokan, sliding over his tongue with every breath he takes. Keith leans back on his haunches and pushes himself up against the bin. To his great luck, the lid hadn’t been pressed all the way down, and with a few hard nudges with his nose, he has it popped open. Wrapped up in a plastic bag is the discarded meal (or fortune’s favor as he likes to think of it). It sits on top, secured from the rest of the garbage, and if this isn’t his luckiest damn night in a while, then Keith doesn’t know what else would qualify. 

He pokes at the bag, then nips at it with his incisors. With every little bite, he tugs it closer to him. It’s a careful process. One could never be too hasty after all, lest he lose the entire meal to the bowels of the bin, and then . .well, if he had been desperate enough, he might have tipped the whole thing over and made off with whatever he could before the farmhouse residents came to check out the noise. Tonight though, Keith has time. Eventually, the loops tying the bag’s handles together are within grabbing distance. With one short hop, he slides his canines around the nearest one and drags the whole bag out of the bin. 

And finds himself staring into the snarl of the dog-without-manners. Keith doesn’t know what the area humans call the stray, though stray seems a harsh word to pin on a dog that is collectively owned. It’s fed well enough, given any number of shelters during the snow-heavy winter months, and is routinely checked out by the local veterinarian. A communal pet. He just had a longer leash than most of his kind, and when the day came when the world plucked his soul from the living, Keith knows there would be very little sorrow over his loss.

Such is the fate of all things no one wants to claim as their own. Another sad tale, another fond memory, but no honest sentiment to bind it to a heart. 

Keith could have sympathized with him if not for that fact that he is now trying to rob him of his hard-won meal. He drops down onto all fours carefully, his packaged dinner swinging in the grip of his mouth. No Manners (Keith just now decided to call him this for it’s better than being nameless) stands slightly taller than himself though his paws are nowhere near as dainty. They’re large things for a dog of No Manners’ size, indicating a failure to live up to whatever breeds contributed to his mutt’s make-up. But that’s just biology. Or a poor diet. Keith couldn’t fault him for it. 

Again, sympathy might have been on the menu tonight if not for their current stand-off situation, in which his earnings are being called into question. Namely as being _his_.

No Manners gives a flick of his tail and follows it with a lift of his lip. Keith takes a step back, hackles starting to rise. In the shadows of the house, No Manners nearly blends in with the darkness, save for the white streaking across his underbelly like the tail of a comet and the cream color dots anointing each eyebrow. Their gazes lock. The intention to lunge ripples over No Manner’s body.

That’s when a snarl rips itself from the dog’s throat, savage as all threats eventually become. Keith growls around his would-be meal and rises up on his feet, trying to make himself appear larger than any fear No Manners has come to know. For a moment, he thinks it has worked. No Manner’s ears flick back. His tail gives a noncommittal swish. Keith takes another step back. 

He’s not quite sure what happened in the ensuing moments. 

A tremble works its way over No Manners’ upper lip, exposing his canines to the moon. Keith notes the curve of it, how it sits white as desert-dried bone against the black fur of his muzzle. Death makes a home in that tooth. It’s the one that sinks into skin, tears through carotid, ravages muscle. No Manners lowers his head, and in the span of a breath, launches himself at Keith. In the process, he manages to kick against the garbage bin, sending the lid clattering to the floor. The porch lights jolt awake as several of the inhabitants stumble outside. Shouts light up the air, confusion meeting shock and both of those colliding with anger. A veritable explosion of sound, and the energy it creates only feeds into No Manners frenzied attempts to divest Keith of his meal. 

Then the chickens kick in their two cents.

It’s like the whole world has drowned itself in madness. All for a meal discarded for a whim. 

Keith drops the bag as he cuts through the vegetable garden. No Manners doesn’t give up the chase until they’re at the edge of the woods, remaining hot on Keith’s tail the entire time. He thinks he lost a few tufts of fur to the gnashing teeth at his heels. Nothing that wouldn’t grow back over time - a small consolation of a thought. He doesn’t stop running when No Manners finally veers off towards the house again, where he’s likely to be hailed a local hero for chasing off the country vermin and given a hearty meal of pizza crusts and clean water. Maybe even a lick or two of beer. People did odd things in celebration, such as relishing in the idea of destruction and _bad choices_ , as though in victory there would never be any consequences for indulging such things. Keith doubts something like a drink of beer would kill No Manners, though. 

The assholes of the world always seem to make it out unscathed from the troubles they start. 

He keeps running, dashing through a pool of fireflies, deeper and deeper into the dark of the woods. Behind him, he can still hear the shouts now mingling with energetic barks. Instinct tells him to flee further in, and that had been Keith’s intention. There’s always a good intention in such instincts, and there’s always something that snags the good in those intentions and makes us reconsider why we ever listened to them. 

_SNAP!_

Sudden pain is a funny thing in that it’s not always so sudden. Sure, the injury happens swift as a peregrine’s hunting dive, but the pain is delayed like the body can’t reconcile what it believes should have happened with what has actually happened to it. Keith stumbles over his foot with a sharp yip of surprise, then gets jerked back by the leg now snared in the trap. His left rear. The breath bursts in his lungs, leaving him gasping. Seconds later, pain ricochets up his leg, and Keith nearly bites through his tongue to keep from announcing it to the world. He lays there for a minute, maybe more. . .time starts to become a fuzzy construct when you’re not certain if you’re still breathing or just waiting for the ground to open up and swallow you like it does for all things destined for death. Counting seconds starts to seem as impossible as naming the individual seed-fluffs of a dandelion head. The pain tells him he’s still living though.

Keith lets out a soft whine, the only one that he allows himself at this moment, and turns to look back at his leg. Just above the tarsal joint, the trap’s metal edges have dug tenaciously into muscle and bone. Staring at it now, it reminds him of those large bodiless shark mouths that hang from the ceilings at natural history museums, filled with rows and rows of life-shearing teeth. His heart hammers out a frantic rhythm against his ribcage at the sight. The air smells like blood. Thin and metallic. Keith swallows down the desire to pass out and instead turns his gaze to the sky above.

Everything has gone silent. 

No cicadas trying to out-sing their lifespans. No triumphant barks from No Manners. No human cacophony clogging up the atmosphere. 

The sort of silence that takes the world captive when Death approaches.

Keith breathes out. He lowers his head to the ground and fixes his gaze toward the heart of the woods. There’s a small stream that cuts through it, spilling from the mountains like a lifeline, but he can’t even hear that. There’s nothing but the roar of nothingness, deafening in his ears, and the scent of blood. He knows there’s a way out of this, logic tells him so. It’s instinct that injects caution into his thoughts. Some innate sense that runs through his veins, whispering that rash action will only lead to further pain. He doesn’t understand it himself, but he knows when to listen. 

As much as he hates it, all of this, he shuts his eyes, and he listens. 

The shrill crow of a rooster shatters the silence. Even when the chickens had started raising a fuss during his scuffle with No Manners, the rooster had held his tongue. And now, of all times, he calls out into the dark like he alone has the power to raise the sun. Keith huffs out a little woof of sound, his amusement coloring itself as black as the night sky. He doesn’t know how long he has been laying there, pain pulsing around his tarsus like a second heart, but when he opens his eyes, the moon is still cradled by the night, and the world is still eerily silent around him.

Maybe it had only been a matter of minutes. Alone there, with just his heartbeat and injuries for company, Keith felt it had been a lifetime there on the forest floor. Because he had lived another life within the dreams that had passed, where none of this was real. Where he had. . .

“You got yourself into a fine mess.”

A growl rolls itself up Keith’s throat. It takes a moment for him to find the owner of that voice, a moment too long if you ask him, but he blames it on the pain, on the dreams that had promised him better than this life had given him. 

“Easy now.”

Soothing. Those words wash over him like the ocean over midnight shores, no more hurried in their movements than Time itself is on its trudge forward. So soothing that it almost irritates him. He wants to feel that fight in him, wants to know that he can still put forth the effort, that current circumstances haven’t defeated him. But that voice is as deep as the waters that feed one’s soul, and it pulls him right into the heart of himself. That honest bit of himself that is laying here in pain and had been hoping against all hopes that something like mercy would find him in these woods. 

Mercy, it turns out, comes in the form of a man taller than most, with shoulders broad, a scar bridging his nose, and his forelock white as moonlight. Keith watches as the owner of that damnable voice manifests from the shadows, as solid as the cypress tree he has found himself trapped beneath. Perhaps he’s still dreaming. The thought does cross his mind as the man starts to approach him, his steps as measured as every breath he takes. Nothing seems out of place with him. He’s wearing a sleeveless hooded pull-over, dark grey (it matches his eyes, Keith notes a little belatedly), unzipped and exposing a T-shirt tight enough to outline the muscle making up this shadow-god dubbed Mercy. As the man gets closer, Keith can make out the image of a red key printed on the shirt. The lines of it seem to waver, as though made of smoke and dreams, though the bow of the key never loses its shape. It remains consistent in keeping its form, two half-moons placed back-to-back so their edges curve to form a perfect slot for curling fingers around. That is if one could actually hold it. Keith gets the impression he could if he imagined hard enough. The rest of the outfit is far more mundane: a pair of dark jeans (they could be black or just that deep of a blue, Keith can’t make out the difference) and black Timberland hiking boots (ones actually meant for hiking). 

“I’m not sure how you ended up here, though -” And here the man pauses, his gaze drifting beyond Keith, back in the direction he had fled from. “- but I can take a bit of a guess.” He smiles then, and it’s as soul-soothing as his voice had been.

It takes Keith a moment to place it, but when he does, the realization shocks him. Kindness. That’s what he sees in this man’s smile, it’s what he hears in his voice, and for some reason, it has his heart shutting up all its doors, locking itself with its own nameless ache. 

“My name is Shiro. Well, if we’re going to be proper here, Takashi Shirogane, but honestly, everyone’s been calling me Shiro for. . .” Another pause. Keith can almost see the laugh that wants to jump from Shiro’s lips then. “. . .what feels like forever actually.”

He reaches with his left hand then and holds it out to Keith, palm up. Most humans present the back of their hand to an unknown animal, hoping to keep their fingers intact, and the openness of it all drills Keith down in his current position. Shiro doesn’t draw back. He keeps talking instead.

“When you’re in a better place, maybe I can get a name for you too. I’d like to help you get there. . .” Shiro flashes that smile at Keith again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Keith swears he hears the metal clicking of a lock being undone. “The better place, I mean. Do you think you could let me help you?”

Keith’s ears go back as Shiro’s hand moves forward. He doesn’t growl, but he thinks there’s a chance that if he can make himself as flat as the leaves on the forest floor then maybe Shiro won’t notice him anymore. Even as he knows it’s far too late for such hopes. But maybe there was never any hiding from this man in the first place. He’s completely unfazed by Keith’s reluctance to interact, almost seems to expect it, and yet there’s this persistent loneliness swimming there in his gaze, faithful companion to the kindness Keith sees. 

And that’s something else he doesn’t quite understand, but he _feels_ it. In the same way that salmon get called upstream despite the gauntlet of predators waiting for them, or how fawns fold their gangly legs up and play motion-stillness games when left alone by their mothers, Keith feels Shiro’s kindness and knows that it exists precisely because that loneliness called out to it. Some people were just like that. Their hurts made them reasonable, their experiences made them patient, and their loneliness made them kind. It’s one of the true marvels of the world. 

When Shiro’s hand settles gently over the top of his head, Keith tries not to whine. His tail gives a half-hearted thump, however, in the manner of all creatures who realize they are at the mercy of something much larger than themselves. He knows Shiro could turn on him at any moment because kindness has also been used as a cover for more malicious intents, and none wielded that better than humankind. It didn’t matter how helpless you were, some hearts had long abandoned their ability to feel anything other than the misery that broke them in the first place, and in their eyes, the helpless were no less fodder for its pain than the ones that tried to fight back. 

Keith doesn’t think himself entirely helpless. He also doesn’t think Shiro has been broken down beyond the repair of his own humanity. Shiro’s touch is far too gentle, the gray of his eyes far too warm, like smoke on a winter’s morning. Maybe if he inhaled deeply enough, he would smell the crackling wood and convince himself he was somewhere closer to a place he could call home. 

Right now, though, all Keith detects is the damp of the earth and the faint acridity of the chicken coop. 

Shiro squats down in front of him. A determined act, Keith decides, with the full weight of the man put directly before him and yet carrying no hint of a threat. He really is big though. Thick thighs, a hand that engulfs his skull, a shoe size that would swallow his footprint in one bite. Keith lowers his head, trying to get away from the press of fingers caressing his fur. 

“I’m going to unfasten that thing around your leg now, all right? Don’t go taking off though. . .” Shiro says, calm easing through his voice and putting Keith’s nerves to sleep. Another flicker of a smile over the man’s lips has Keith wanting to bury his head in the earth for an entirely different reason. “When they bite in like that, they have a nasty habit of getting infected.”

Keith wrinkles his nose at that, exposing his incisors and earning him a small laugh from Shiro. 

“Good boy.”

Those words work through him like liquor warming blood. It makes him think he _likes_ this man. You know, outside of the more primordial reasons like the cut of Shiro’s jawline, the command of his presence, the mountainous curves of his biceps. Not that Keith is claiming attraction at this moment. Only that Shiro, under other circumstances, would have been considered a prime specimen of any species, and whether or not one wanted to admit it, appreciation hit on that biological level of existence. 

See Shiro smile. Watch Shiro save the fox. Feel pain bite into your body as freedom is granted.

“Easy, buddy. . .”

That lulling tone again. Keith doesn’t dare move his leg, but he whimpers as the wound begins to throb in new ways. As though in granting him release, Shiro also gave his body permission to feel the injury in all the fullness of its fury. He pets Keith again, as gentle as before, then runs his fingers lightly around his left ear. 

“Your fur might turn white there,” Shiro starts to explain, his gaze lingering on the wound. “Sometimes that happens with scarring. . .but don’t worry. I’m pretty sure the only thing people will notice is the brilliant red of your coat.” 

He doesn’t know why, but Keith finds confidence in that reassurance. And he had never once given a damn about what people thought of his coat other than the fact that he very much liked keeping his coat _his_ and no one else’s. Shiro pets him one last time then rocks back on his heels and tucks his arms against his chest. He continues to squat there, surveying Keith, with that same forlorn kindness in his gaze. 

Shiro looks like a man who wants to turn away Hope from his door. What a damnable notion! Stupidity, maybe, or mere foolishness. But as their eyes meet, it strikes Keith, like a rock that missed the window and found his chest instead, that he isn’t the only one afraid of this moment. That knowledge passes between them, with one simple glance, and just like that, Keith begins to wonder what a man like this is doing out here in these woods at the very moment he needed someone the most.

That thought alone is something he could have hated himself for, but Shiro offers him no room for those volatile emotions. Like a lid capping a candle, Keith feels his anger sputter (at himself, at the ridiculousness of this whole situation, at this desire welling up in his core to be helped by this man) out of existence. There is only a black emptiness left inside of him after it goes, and for the first time in all of Time that he can remember, Keith feels like letting go. 

He wants to trust Shiro. 

“There’s this place I can take you,” Shiro says, caution softening his words. “I know someone there who can fix you up. . .”

Keith lifts his head but keeps his ears flat. He gets a wan smile in return for that.

“She’s good, I promise. The gods love her. . .”

He tips his head, one ear perking up, calling Shiro out on his statement. As far as Keith is concerned, the gods loved no one. Not even themselves. They merely existed as stories, fabricated by lost hearts to give people something to put their faith in when they could no longer sustain faith in the world around them. No one is out there listening to prayers, and the darkness visits them all, no more harmful than the daylight. Because night or day, people’s behaviors did not change. Night or day, there is always something out there looking to survive.

If only to get it right for another day of living. 

Shiro laughs at that, a hearty sound that seems to take in all of Keith’s doubts and melt them down to something better than false idols and hopeless dreams. 

“Come with me.”

It’s an invitation, with Shiro’s signature set down as a scrawling smile over his lips. Keith doesn’t move, but after a moment, he gives a resigned sigh, punctuated by a small pained woof of a sound as he lowers his head back to the ground. With one more reassuring pat, Shiro accepts the answer given and gingerly lifts Keith. He doesn’t know where this place is, but as he’s cradled in Shiro’s arms, like a life that has weight to it and a heart worth protecting, Keith finds himself drifting into a dreamless sleep. 

Too late does it occur to him that Shiro carries no scent of his own.

*

“He’s alive right?”

The world is a washout of black. When Keith opens his eyes, it’s all he can see. Black above. He blinks. Black behind his eyelids. Like someone took a shotgun to the moon and blasted it right out of the night sky. 

“Of course, he’s alive. What do you take me for?”

A woman’s voice. Vaguely irritated. No one that he is familiar with, but then again, there is nothing currently existing in this universe except for his thoughts. That’s what it feels like at least. Him alone with just words attached to bodiless voices floating around in his head. He closes his eyes again, familiar with that darkness at least, and breathes out for what feels like the first time since his life began. To think that this might be the very beginning of living. He wonders if it’s possible to stay just like this, without a world to belong to, without a dream to drag him forward, without the misery of a wounded heart and a busted leg and a. . .

His leg. 

Keith launches himself forward, hands grasping for his ankle. It’s there, in one piece, and so is the rest of him. 

“I thought you were taking care of some fox Shiro took pity on. . .”

“He is the fox.” 

“That is not a fox.”

A decidedly feminine huff at that, fluffed up with annoyance. “Lance, stop splitting hairs!”

“All right, all right, already! I’m just saying you don’t have a fox in there.”

“Lance!”

Laughter follows, slick with its own amusement, then is drowned in a popping of bubbles and a splash of water. Silence settles in. Keith still can’t locate the bodies. 

Maybe he’s dead. 

But if that’s the case, Heaven has a sick sense of aftercare for the soul. Where are the white lights? The cloud-lined streets and the golden gates? The sense that everything is settled, and the world is right, and you did every damn thing that you could, and finally, something in it all paid off in the end?

He’s not dead. 

Keith drags his fingers over his ankle. The voice outside - _Lance_ \- is right. He is no longer in fox form. There’s a human foot, with toes wiggling back at him as though to punctuate that fact with an excessive use of exclamation points, and a human leg, with fine dark hairs running over its shin. Beyond that, all the necessary parts that make a human body function - knee, thigh, hip, cock. . .

Not dead. Completely naked. 

A morgue? 

No, then he’d be freezing under silver-lined darkness and trying to find his voice before Death finally rode in and took that from him too. Besides, whatever he’s laying on isn’t as unforgiving as cold steel. Actually, it’s a bit more like memory foam. He tried one of those once - a memory foam mattress. Not because he ever thought he could afford it (and thus convinced himself he would never want one), but because some things looked irresistibly soft and like the pull of gravity on the tide, Keith found himself curling up over one until the saleswoman started asking him how he liked it. He had liked it. His bank account hadn’t. But that is neither here nor there at this moment. He drops his gaze to his bed. 

Correction.

His flower. Flower bed? Something somewhere in the depths of his mind tells him that is worth laughing over. Keith, at the current moment, doesn’t find the humor in his situation. Instead, his lips form a faint frown as he shifts to his side and finally turns his gaze out to the blackness around him. There are more of the flowers, floating in the distance like ships set adrift in a harbor. And just like his own, they carry the shape of a lotus, with each emitting a pale glow. His own lotus dances with soft blue light. Further down the line, he can see oranges, reds, purples, greens. All shifting through the petals of each flower, all as easy on the eyes as dawn’s first brush along the horizon. 

Everything else, however, is as black as a witch’s most fatal brew. 

“Check on him.”

That woman again. The voice that replies, however, is familiar in a way that restores Keith to his sanity. 

“He’s awake, you know,” Shiro says quietly. Like all visitors do when confined to a hospital room. 

Before he can find his sense of irritation, Shiro is stepping into the space before him. Keith barely detected the entrance, no more than a ripple in a black curtain draped over a midnight sea with only a nightlight’s worth of illumination to carve the world out by. Part of him thinks he imagined it, but then how would he explain Shiro’s arrival? His frown deepens. 

“How are you feeling?” 

The universal opening question when it came to the infirm. Or that’s what Keith might have been calling himself if not for the fact that his leg feels perfectly fine, and aside from the scabs where the trap’s teeth had bitten down, he might have thought the whole experience with the farmhouse nothing more than a nightmare-washed dream. Which still doesn’t give him the answers regarding his here-and-now. 

Honestly speaking, _this_ has to be the nightmare parading as a dream and the farmhouse had definitely been his cold hard reality check. Keith would wake up any minute now, realizing he’s going to die all for a trash-bound dinner. 

Shiro holds out something to him. A neatly folded package of cloth, its red as vibrant as the camellias that had enthroned themselves in the backyard of his childhood home, with a faint shimmer that Keith recognized as silk. 

“Thought you might want something to dress in.” Shiro leans closer, offering the garment again. 

It’s only then, as the glow of his lotus lights up Shiro’s face, that Keith notices the faint blush. Shiro never drops his gaze, but the information relayed by that dusting of pink across his cheeks tells Keith everything. And by everything, Shiro had seen _everything_.

A bit unfair if you ask Keith, but isn’t that the first lesson they teach you about the world? Everything has unfairness woven into it.

He takes the proffered package and unfolds it over his lap. “Where am I?”

Simple question. Keith gets the feeling this isn’t so simple a place, however. 

Shiro seems to mull over his response, proving Keith right. Not a simple place. He catches sight of Shiro as he lifts a hand and rubs at his jaw, a smile trying to make something of itself over his lips. “You don’t. . .feel anything being here?”

And that would be a question on the verge of declaring war. Keith feels his inadequacy acutely, this sharp prick of pain right in the center of his chest that encourages the idea of stopping his breath, stopping his heart, just. . .stopping. His eyes narrow at Shiro. His fingers pluck at the silk.

“Confused,” he answers, with a smile that could cut a dead man from his noose. “Still don’t know what the fuck this place is though.”

A reply that doesn’t throw Shiro off his stride. “Okay, then how about this - do you know what you are?”

“Confused.” 

Does that make him a jerk? Maybe. But it doesn’t make him any less honest. 

“Keith, I’m just trying -“

“How do you know my name?”

“I just know it.”

“ _How_? I never once said it!”

“You did actually. . .” 

It’s the way Shiro pauses after that last word that makes Keith second-guess himself.

“When I brought you into here,” Shiro continues, his blush deepening a little. “I tried to wake you up, and you were for a moment at least. Enough to thank me and give me your name. . .”

Horror creeps into Keith’s stomach. It twists his guts and wrings hunger right out of him. He had. . .he had. . . 

“. . .shifted. . .”

His hands curl around the silk in his lap, bunching it into fists, as though he could crush the truth with his bare hands. You can’t though. . .crush the truth. Can’t pulverize it, vaporize it, even if you could deny it, the trust still exists. Before he had even arrived, Keith had gone from his fox form to his human one, all while in Shiro’s hands.

“Why. . .” Keith shakes his head and nearly loses his thoughts in the process. His brow furrows, and when he looks at Shiro next, it’s with this strange sense of bewilderment weighing heavy on his tongue. “. . . .why doesn’t this bother you?”

The smile that had been treading water over Shiro’s lips finally finds something worth grabbing onto. It puffs itself up to fullness as Shiro’s shoulders drop and relief brings some of the life back into his eyes. 

“Because he’s a kitsune too. . .”

Like a mirage pulling itself from the desires of the desert, a woman materializes beside Shiro. She’s. . .dazzling. That’s the only way Keith can think to put it. Light reflects off her darker-toned skin, as though the moon itself had come to pay tribute to her being, and her eyes shine with the same blue light emanating from his lotus-bed. She’s dressed in silk, which shimmers just as beautifully as the garment in his hands, though it’s pure as winter’s first snowfall in its white, and with every movement she makes, Keith swears he sees stars shooting across its surface. A fabric that lives and breathes, born of the cosmos and seen fit to wrap itself around her figure. It cinches in around her waist, but flares out around her forearms and legs, growing more and transparent the closer it gets to her feet, which are as bare as his. The hem of the dress isn’t quite invisible, but is as thin as a spider’s web, and against the black of the floor, Keith realizes there are, in fact, stars glimmering over its surface, and yes, some of them rocket across the garment’s expanse as if called to another place by a human wish.

“. . .Kitsu -”

“-ne.” She finishes it for Keith with a smile, tightly wound up over her lips. “I see you haven’t gotten yourself dressed yet.”

“Shiro, I don’t. . .” But Keith doesn’t know how he wants to finish that. Instead, his gaze has fixed itself on another oddity - their feet. Shiro’s are hidden, and when he shifts his weight, the blackness ripples out around him like a puddle suddenly disturbed. The woman, however, is standing on top of it all, her dress billowing out around a glass floor. 

“Do you know what a kitsune is?” Shiro asks, trying to be helpful but looking just as confused as Keith feels. 

He shakes his head at that, eyes closing. “I’m dreaming, right? I’m still out there in the forest. . .”

“You’re not.”

“Allura, please. . .”

“Shiro, this is not the time. He needs to be aware of his situation. More importantly, of what he is. He’s lucky you found him and not the Gal-”

“ _Allura_.”

The warning in Shiro’s voice is pronounced, even as the name itself is uttered with the utmost respect. Keith’s eyelids fly open at the sound of it, though. They’re both standing there, hips turned towards one another, but their heads tipped towards Keith. Allura pulls herself up a little straighter and bows her head in Shiro’s direction, the smallest concession. 

“Keith.” Her tone has softened considerably, losing the commanding edge and adopting a friendlier nature. Keith isn’t sure which is more truthful to her actual being (ruthlessly to the point or this attempt at subdued understanding), but he listens nonetheless. “I can see you have much to learn about all of this, but perhaps we can discuss this after you have dressed and eaten?” 

She leans in, eager for a response. 

“Umm. . .yeah. . .I guess that would be okay.” His mouth is moving, and the words are coming out, but Keith doesn’t know where they are actually coming from. Maybe like everything else in this Subconscious Playground (for where else could he have come up with something so fucking fantastical he simply starts to play along with it?), they are simply conjured up from the nothingness. He glances over at Shiro, whose expression has regained the kindness from their meeting in the woods, and feels innately that this is no mystical playground, no dreamer’s delusion. Shiro is real, and so is this Allura, and he is in some place with no name attached to it and probably no address but most certainly exists by all definitions of the word _existence_. 

“Fantastic!” she exclaims, clapping her hands together. The gesture makes her look no more than a stone’s throw over eighteen. Or maybe that’s the delight putting sunshine into her blue eyes. Keith doesn’t know, but he resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“I’d like to dress first,” he says dryly. 

Allura nods her head with more enthusiasm than the situation calls for, reminding Keith of those bobbleheads taxi drivers thought entertaining enough to place on their dashboards. Shiro clears his throat. 

“Oh, right. . .yes. I suppose I should be leaving then.” She draws her shoulders back, an act that puts the authority back into her form, and turns her attention to Shiro. “I’ll have Coran prepare something for you both. Something earthy?” Pulling a hand up to shield her mouth from view, she rises up on tip-toe and whispers into Shiro’s ear next. “Would it be too soon to introduce him to the fox wine?”

Keith can hear every word, which only serves to further irritate him solely for the fact that it has somehow piqued his interest. If he had still been in fox form, his ears would betray him with their pricked forward position. When Shiro glances over at him though, Keith gets the distinct impression that he hasn’t pulled off his eavesdropping as seamlessly as he had thought. But Allura had said he was the same. . . _kitsune_ had been the word.

He knew what it meant, but she treated it as something different. Something magical, beyond the comprehension of just _fox_. It was Fox, with the capital ‘F’ and a history parading behind it that extended well past the taxonomical. And maybe there is something to that. After all, he is not just a fox, pure and simple. He drifts between two worlds, without really belonging to either. Maybe this idea of _kitsune_ could be the bridge over that gaping darkness that had haunted his life.

“One thing at a time, Allura,” Shiro says, a softness to his voice that suggests an intimacy Keith had long stopped dreaming about for himself. 

Not for the first time since waking up after his meal-gone-awry ordeal Keith feels out of place. Like a clock with no one to keep time for, his heart keeps ticking away, and his thoughts keep churning, but this moment somehow isn’t his, and neither is this place, and now all he wants to do is get dressed and find the nearest exit. Which seems impossible in this chamber of a room with floors that seem determined to meet eternity. Just going and going and going, and not a single glowing green exit sign to point the way out. Because that would be easy, and nothing in Keith’s life has ever been easy.

As quickly as she had conjured herself from the nothingness, Allura is gone. Keith had only blinked, trying to shove away the disquiet wrapping itself around his thoughts, and where she had been standing, there now remains only a shower of stardust fluttering down to the ground. Shiro is still there, however, staring at Keith with expectancy in his gaze.

“Once you’re dressed, I’ll show you through the palace.”

Palace. Home of kings and queens, and quite frankly, there isn’t a single goddamned palace in all of Japan (or the world for that matter because why stop at one country?) that has a backroom of star-stripped blackness and healing lotuses playing host to supernatural beings. None of this should rightly exist, actually. Only Keith can’t deny his own existence, which has been as natural to him as the air he breathes and the delight he takes in napping under wild hydrangea during early summer mornings.

So, maybe there is some truth to all of this. 

Keith simply nods his head at Shiro’s words and drops his gaze to the garment in his hands. He’s only partially unfolded it, but even so, he knows what it is. A kimono. Heavy, expensive, too good for the likes of him. It burns a brilliant red in his hands, and as he goes through the motions of unfurling it completely, Keith begins to realize it’s not just _red_ ; its the various stages of red, from the sunlit oranges of a dawn just breaking to the deep crimson of newly spilled blood. The colors undulated over the garment, like the flicker of flame, making it nearly impossible for Keith to pinpoint any one color at any one particular time. No sooner has his eyes recognized a hue has it shifted into something else. An undefined mess of color.

“Don’t you have something. . .normal?” Keith asks, unable to help the clipped edge biting into his last word. He makes a vague gesture toward Shiro, who remains clad in his outfit from the forest. The normal stuff - jeans, a pullover, T-shirt. Keith still hasn’t figured out if he’s barefoot or not, but that seems decidedly less important at the moment when compared to his current attire choice: go naked or drape himself in some phantasmic kimono probably made of spider’s spit or the soul of some fire demon. Or both. Allura had given him the impression she would be capable of such a thing. 

When he finally glances over at Shiro, Keith nearly regrets it. The man appears amused. Not in that fond ‘aren’t you cute’ sort of way but in that genuine ‘you have so much to learn’ sort of way. And the worst thing about it is that he looks fucking _good_ sporting that look. Like Shiro could do no wrong with his expressions. . .which just quietly infuriates him. 

“Honestly, Keith, you’re better off wearing that in this place. You’re going to stand out a lot less, and it’ll help mask the scent of the other realm on you.”

Actually, the worst thing in the world (aside from being trapped in some dark, nameless dimension with a burning kimono in his hands) is finding someone so impossibly attractive you honestly consider going along with the bullshit lines they’re feeding you.

“I keep thinking one of your replies is going to answer some things for me, but instead they just keep leading to more questions.”

Shiro chuckles quietly at that. “I promise you, answers are coming. And I’m not lying to you about the scent thing.”

“I wasn’t. . .” Keith trails off. Suddenly, none of his confusion seems worth the effort of mounting an actual defense. 

“You looked like you didn’t believe that part.”

“I’m actually having a hard time believing a lot of this, Shiro.” 

“That’s understandable. You weren’t brought up with any of this.”

“Yeah. That. You guys keep talking about _this_ like I should somehow get it, and I don’t.”

Shiro shifts his weight. The blackness ripples out around his ankles again. On and on, they go, endlessly enlarging circles that are eventually swallowed by the distance. It’s an echo chamber with no echoes, Keith realizes.

Clearing his throat, Shiro glances around the room and finally back down at Keith. There’s understanding in his gaze, a gentle smile over his lips, and not for the first time tonight, Keith thinks that home is meant to be more than just a place you keep your stuff. The very idea of that stirs an ache inside of his chest, one he wishes he could claw right out and watch drown in the black wasteland around him.

“Start getting dressed, and I’ll begin to explain, okay?” Shiro offers, compassion warming his voice. 

The ache inside of him sinks its hooks deep into his lungs and for a moment, Keith thinks dying is still a very real possibility for him. He nods his head, looks down at the fabric in his hands once more, and starts to unravel it again. The colors shift like a wayward breeze, refusing to settle.

“Do you know anything about yourself?”

His fingers clench around the kimono. Keith slides his legs out, noting briefly the deep purple scar around his left ankle. When his feet touch the ground, they sink beneath the surface, just like Shiro’s. He feels nothing though, like he had just slipped through cloud cover, maybe the faint mist of a chill and nothing more. He pulls his left foot out. Nothing drips from his skin. He sets it back down beside his right foot, wiggles his toes, and still feels nothing. 

“Ah, before you stand up, you should. . .make sure you believe there’s a floor beneath you. Otherwise, you’ll just sink, and we’ll have to call one of the ningyo to find you.”

“Don’t you think you should have told me that before I put my feet down?!” Keith snipes, the question a blistering burp of irritation.

A sheepish smile steals over Shiro’s mouth as he shrugs apologetically. “You didn’t try to stand up yet. . .”

With a roll of his eyes, Keith stares down at the floor. It’s still an inky, iced-over mess that glitters beneath the light emanating from his lotus bed. He takes in a breath, pushes himself up, and. . .fuck. Somewhere between thinking he had a floor beneath his feet and realizing there was nothing to keep him from drowning in whatever void was floating around him, Keith finds himself steadied by Shiro’s hand gripping his arm and a sudden jarring sense of reality. Which is to say, recognizing in complete and non-negotiable terms that this place is held together by rules Keith doesn’t know and is certain would drive any human physicist insane.

“Take your time, Keith,” Shiro murmurs, reassuring. “I know this is a lot to take in, but patience yields focus. . .”

“What sort of bullshit. . .”

The look Shiro gives him silences the rest of that thought. It’s bemused but born from the same place compassion and goodwill are fostered.

“Trust me, all right? I’m not going to leave you here. . .”

“I’d rather trust you with some clothes on,” Keith mutters, mortified. He feels like a fawn whose legs had gone rogue, only his legs aren’t the real problem here. It’s his mind. . .or the floor. Either one or maybe both, but each something that should have been solid and is nothing of the sort at this moment. And now standing here, he’s painfully aware that he’s still naked and clutching the kimono like it is some sort of lifeline.

Shiro bursts with a small, amused laugh for that. “I’m not looking. Promise.”

“I don’t care about that.”

He did, actually, in the way that most human beings would care about such things. Call it a sense of decency or just wanting to run as far from the notion of intimacy as possible when it came to the unknowns of the universe. But Keith figures getting the once-over from Shiro is no worse than getting caught in a trap by the same man only to expose himself as a creature that is neither human nor fox without his explicit awareness on the ensuing rescue mission. That had been a secret Keith had intended to carry to his grave. Like it is just that easy to keep the various parts of yourself distinct from the others, one side blind to the other, one world oblivious to the possibility of all you could actually be. Too late, though, to wish for things long gone. And it’s not as though he had been running from himself. . .Keith accepts what he is, for all that he knows about it. He’s just never had faith that the world would give him that same sort of acceptance.

That’s the shitty thing about knowing your human side - you can see where all the shortcomings exist. 

“I’m still not looking though,” Shiro affirms. 

And he’s not. A quick glance up shows him that Shiro has his head turned even as his grip continues to keep Keith afloat. He grunts out his reply and turns his attention back to the fathomless sea beneath him. Still as dark, as empty as Death’s last dream. He shuts his eyes, tries to imagine what it would be like to have something solid under him, and finds that all he can see is a blackout world with strange creatures swimming through its depths. Colorful electric fish that aren’t quite fish but half-decayed monstrosities with their organs pulsing neon like some All You Can Eat sign at a cheapass country road diner. There’s kelp down there too, tall as skyscrapers, and Keith gets the innate feeling that something better left asleep lurks down among their roots. He sees a flash of it, that thing larger than any dream the human mind could conjure, these bright yellow eyes with slit pupils and insidious intent swimming in its gaze. His heart starts to quicken, spilling panic into his blood, and a moment later, the world falls back into focus. There are only the lotuses, floating silently around the room, and his legs submerged to his knees, and Shiro still looking at the distance as though something is calling him back home. 

“How do you do it?” Keith asks, breathless. The panic has touched his voice, making him sound too young to his own ears. He wants to cringe at that, but he pushes on instead. “The floor thing. . .how do you do it?”

Shiro’s head jerks back slightly at that, startled, but he keeps his attention fixed on the space stretching out opposite from Keith. As he reaches up with his other hand, to scratch at his cheek apparently, Keith can just make out the small pull of a smile over his lips. Is it the situation that brought it about or just the fact that Keith had asked him for advice? 

“I always think of it like home. I have these wood floors. They’re quite smooth, but I think that happens with age and decent upkeep,” Shiro explains. The smile still clings to his lips. 

Keith thinks there’s fondness to it now, that smile, but he doesn’t get it. And his inability to understand only strings his mouth out in a tight displeased line. 

The lack of response seems to goad Shiro into talking more. “We’re not like Allura. She’s a goddess, and this world bows to her even if everything within it doesn’t always want to at times. That’s why she can waltz in here and be unaffected. But you and I. . .we’re part of this, so we have to set our boundaries or this world will set them for us.” 

Those words sink inside of Keith like a marble in molasses. He rolls his tongue across the roof of his mouth before huffing out, incredulous. Palaces. Goddesses. Water you can walk through or sink indefinitely in. “So, what is all of this then? If she’s not part of it, but we are. . .what are we?”

The corner of Shiro’s mouth twitches. A smile no longer, but a smirk taking its place like it had every right to be there. A usurped king reclaiming his throne. “We’re yōkai, Keith. And this is the world we’ve been relegated to. Though this current space is a bit different. Think of it as our world meeting Allura’s celestial one. But if the humans have the earthly realm, and the gods the celestial, then we have the unearthly one.”

“I don’t get it. . .” Point blank, loaded with irritation and the hint of a bark that Keith knew he had the bite to back up. 

Shiro glances over at him then. Not at his body, not at his struggle to stay afloat, but right in the eyes. And Keith sees it then, that preternatural glow that haunts the stares of all night-stalking creatures. It bathes the gray of Shiro’s irises in yellow, and with another blink, it’s gone. As human as everyone else back in his hometown. 

“We’re the things that go bump in the night, Keith. All those legends and fairy tales? They’re us. And as human society got more advanced, they started worshipping other things like technology and celebrity, and we got shunted to the world of obscurity in the process. It doesn’t mean we don’t exist, and there are plenty of us who use this cover to our advantage. But the majority?” Shiro gestures around him, and for a moment, the air shimmers like the prelude to a dream’s dissolution, and Keith swears he can hear laughter, see torches lining cobbled streets. “They live here, just as we always have for thousands of years.”

“I’m sorry - did you just say thousands of years?” Keith chokes out the question, disbelief casting a smile over his lips. “How old are you, Shiro?”

“One thousand, six hundred and twenty eight years to be exact. Though if we were to go by the fact that I was technically born on a leap day, I’m only four hundred and seven.”

“Bullshit.”

“I assure you it’s not. You can ask Allura. She’s known me since I was two hundred.”

“No one lives that long!”

Something in Shiro’s gaze shifts then. Confusion muddled with pained understanding. It’s not pity, but it feels a whole hell like it, and Keith wants nothing more than to throw his fist into the nearest body. Shiro’s to be perfectly precise. Because he’s clearly being made a fool of here.

“I’m not lying to you, Keith.”

He says it with such certainty that Keith feels the fight in him sputter like a lit match thrown to the mercy of the rain. There are times when someone speaks, and their words come out so heavy with truth, it’s like a crushing force exerting over your own soul. As much as he wants to deny it, he can barely breathe under the weight of Shiro’s honesty.

“This can’t be right. . .”

“I never said it was right. Just that it was real,” Shiro replies. 

He’s still looking at Keith, as human as Keith had once thought him to be, and maybe he’s not that far from that truth either. Because there are times Keith feels more human than beast, and he knows more than anyone else, there is no shrugging off his humanity. It’s been the one thing he hasn’t been able to discard in all his years alive. All twenty-three of them. 

“I. . .imagine a floor, right?” he asks after a moment. He still feels like there’s a black hole in his head, devouring reality by the mouthful, but more than that, instinctually, Keith knows he has to move. 

“Yeah. Whatever you feel you know best, imagine that," Shiro says. His voice is backed by a quiet reassurance as if he has full faith that Keith will find a way to ground (quite literally) himself. 

So, he imagines it. Or tries to. The images move through his mind rapid fire, as quick as a jaded lover tossing out photos across a table trying to elicit a response from the one who walked away. One after the other, all piling on top, higher and higher, until there’s a mountain of images, and that’s when it all finally clicks. Keith breathes out. The ground beneath him takes shape. He can feel the light tickle of grass, the give of dirt, recently rain-softened, beneath his weight. As he takes a step, he encounters the smooth roll of a pebble, too small to be an inconvenience, and when he takes another, he finally smiles up at Shiro. He’s ankle deep in the water that wasn’t just water, all without the threat of drowning himself in oblivion.

“I did it!”

Shiro chuckles at that as he removes his hand from Keith’s bicep. “I knew you could.”

Why it’s those words that send the blush skittering across his cheeks, Keith doesn’t know. But he feels it like that first pulse of summer air as you exit your apartment, washing not just over his cheeks, but down his spine and deep into his core. Faith is a hard thing to come by. Hard enough to conjure for himself, but to hear it in someone else’s voice. . .He swipes his tongue over his lips and glances down at the kimono still burning in his hands. 

“Thanks. . .” It’s a lackluster sort of gratitude, but Shiro doesn’t seem offended by it. How triumph could feel so tumultuous though. . . “I’m gonna get dressed. Give me a moment.”

Another laugh from Shiro. Another wave of warmth washes over Keith. He doesn’t know what to make of that one either, but it doesn’t feel bad. Just. . .new. Weird. Maybe it’s the cloth he’s slipping over his skin. It has weight to it, and heat too, but neither are overbearing. The obi is made of the same material and seems to melt into the fabric of the kimono once tied into place. As Keith runs his fingers over it, he can discern the slight edge marking its existence around him, but as he looks down, he sees the same shifting colors moving in unison across kimono and obi alike. Absorbed as part of the landscape enveloping his form. He tosses the thought, unnerving as it is, from his mind with a small shake of his head. 

“Ready?” Shiro asks.

“I think so. . .” Keith answers, uncertainty slowing his words. He picks over the notion in his head - whether he was ready or not - and finds, in no uncertain terms, that he is not by any means ready for this but realizes he has no other choice than to confront it. It’s the jump-over-the-cliff scenario that haunts anxiety dreams and action films alike. Sometimes you take the plunge, and it saves your life. Other times, you wake up in a sweating mess, cloaked in darkness, knowing that you almost met your end in another life. Keith isn’t quite sure where this jump will leave him, but he takes it nonetheless. “Let’s go.”

A pause as he glances around the room and all its endless, echoless space. “However we get out of here. . .there is a way out, right?”

Shiro shrugs at that, then glances over his shoulder with a smile even Loki would have been envious of - pure, unadulterated mischief. Keith didn’t actually think the man had it in him, but then he also didn’t think this ‘unearthly’ world had any real substance to it either. Experience could be a bitch of a teacher at times in the way she berated your ego. So, Shiro smirks, and he snaps his fingers, and from their tips, blue fire sparks. The flame hovers there in the air, a single ball of incandescence that burns like moonlight over the darkest of seas. He then takes his index finger and swipes it through the fire, dragging it across the air until a scrawling script starts to form in the same flickering blue hue. It’s a language Keith doesn’t recognize, or maybe he would if he had studied a little harder, a little longer. He doesn’t try to make sense of it but instead focuses on the way Shiro’s finger tames the fire until there is nothing of the flame itself left. As he punctuates the sentence (Keith thinks it’s a sentence, short but beautiful) with a star-like symbol, Shiro draws in a breath. A flick of a glance in Keith’s direction, mischief still dancing in his eyes, and then he turns to blow out across the words until they dissipate in swirls of blue-gray smoke. 

“What. . .”

Keith’s words are cut short as the darkness dissolves before Shiro. A perfect circular cut into space, large enough for them both to pass through. On the other side, Keith can see a hallway, its floors gleaming like sunlight over Arctic ice fields. He’s seen pictures of it - of how the sun blinds then settles and the whole world looks like someone had ground down the stars and scattered their ashes across the land. 

“Shall we?” Shiro sweeps his arm out in front of him, but when Keith makes no motion to move, he steps through the portal himself. The first thing Keith notices is that he is, in fact, still wearing his boots. They’re not drenched. For a moment, reality disconnects for him once again. He stands there, blinking, mouth twisted into a frown until Shiro calls out from the other side. “I only asked for this door to be open for two minutes, Keith. So, it’s now or never.”

Despite saying never, Keith gets the distinct impression Shiro wouldn’t abandon him to the nameless void of recovery. He feels the corner of his mouth curl, a smirk to counter the one he had seen on Shiro’s lips only moments before, and moves through the opening. As much as he feels the lure to look behind him, he doesn’t. Something about doing so makes him feel like he might leave a part of himself behind, and the more insistent that ideas tugs at him to do so, the more Keith is certain he should never look back. The moment the door closes, the notion dies, and with its death, Keith feels the breath rush back into his lungs. 

“Welcome,” Shiro says, sweeping his hand over the hallway, “to the White Plum Palace.”


	2. Chapter 2

There is nothing particularly white about the White Plum Palace. At least, that’s all that seems to be running through Keith’s head as he sits there, at a table far too small to be called grand yet set like some formal dinner is approaching. He knows the sorts even if he’s never quite experienced one himself: three different forks, more knives than are warranted, a miniature spoon for a dessert he could wolf down in one bite (but shouldn’t because where on earth are his manners?!), and enough glasses set out to drown even the most tenaciously trained lush. Or maybe he should call them connoisseurs. . .the point being, the whole thing is out of place, just like him. 

As for the palace, the only thing white about it, that he could ascertain so far, is the hallway floorings. They sparkle like an invitation to dream and scale heights greater than the stars. Beneath his bare feet, the tiles had been as smooth as glass and just as cool to the touch. Keith couldn’t figure out how they had been put together because there had been no seams to demarcate one edge from another. Just one continuous path that veered off down various hallways, all closed in by black walls that glittered just as brilliantly. Upon closer inspection of those, he thought they looked like a bamboo grove, their stalks tightly bound together. But the longer he looked at them, the more he felt like he was staring into some fathomless forest. Nothing moved out there. Not even the hint of a breeze to rustle. Yet unmistakably alive. Then, he would blink, pull back into himself, and the walls continued to simply glimmer at him with that faint silver sparkle cascading over their surfaces. 

Those same walls close him in now, but whatever sat beyond them is well out of his reach. He picks up his fork and prods at the mess on his plate. All that’s left is a drizzle of sauce, deep brown and rich in flavor, and a set of bones sucked dry of meat and marrow. He made no excuses for being starving, though when Shiro had looked over at him, that same strangely fond amusement on his face, he had thought it worth the effort of showing he did, indeed, know how to use a fork and knife. Even if it wasn’t the correct one. 

No one bothered to correct him on that. 

“So, Keith. . .”

He glances up from his plate as Allura addresses him. Her hands are folded neatly in front her. All that had been served for her was a small bowl of brightly colored fruit Keith didn’t recognize, and a velvety purple liquid poured into one of the wine glasses. At least, Keith thinks it’s a wine glass. She hasn’t touched either, however. Shiro, at least, seemed to be enjoying his meal. Sans the marrow. Keith chalks that up to better manners. 

“You’ve had a chance to see a little bit of this place. But I was wondering if you might not tell us a bit about yourself?” Allura prods, a sweet smile gracing her lips. There’s an eagerness to her words that slides down his spine like the algae slime that sits on the top of stagnant ponds. For his part, Shiro doesn’t look the least bit perturbed. In fact, he even looks a little curious himself. 

Keith pushes his fork across the plate, a strident screech dragging in its wake. The wince Allura gives brings a smirk to his lips. “I thought you already knew everything about me. You’re some sort of goddess, aren’t you?”

A twitch tackles the smile on Allura’s lips. “I see Shiro has told you a few things as well. And though I may be a goddess, I try not to pry into the lives of those who don’t wish for it. I would rather you offer us the information of your own volition.”

Since when did the gods ask for anything? Or anyone really for that matter? It’s a petty luxury paraded around as the expectation but so rarely met by anyone. After all, you didn’t ask a lion not to hunt a particular herd, just like a stray dog doesn’t politely ask you to give up a meal. The world takes. Just like it always has. The gods have never been any different. And if they had? It’s because they stopped listening to humans long ago. 

“Well, you already know my name. What else is there to tell you?” he asks, setting the fork down with a clatter over the plate. It’s a pretty thing too, black as the walls around him with a silver lotus blooming over its center. Probably not deserving of his current behavior, but pretty things get broken by the world too. 

Shiro clears his throat. He sets his fork down, right alongside the knife, then turns his attention to Keith. “Well, to start, how much do you know about yourself? You seem rather aware of your own abilities. Some of them at least. . .”

Some of them. As in, not all of them. Like there is more to him than Keith can imagine, and quite frankly, Keith is pretty sure he is the only one who really knows Keith. He huffs at that, tongue running over his canine tooth, and shifts in his chair to better face Shiro. “I know that I’m not like most humans if that’s what you’re asking. I can shift into a fox and back. That’s all there is to this. If there was something more, I would know it.”

Amusement flickers over Shiro’s expression then. Keith feels it like an insult shot right into his heart. “Just because I didn’t know about this realm doesn’t mean I don’t know myself.”

It sounds as hurt as it felt loading itself on his tongue. He knows he’s being unreasonable, but the way Shiro looks at him. . .like he’s not some grand fuck-up in the world, like he could be anybody else and yet he's nobody else. He's Keith.

“There’s more to you than you think, Keith,” Shiro says after a moment. His voice is kind, just like it was out in the woods, and it makes Keith want to shatter so that he can prove himself capable of reforming into something better. “And I’d like to help you realize that. But the choice is yours to make.”

Keith feels his lips sealing his mouth shut. Not because he’s particularly displeased by the idea. Even he can see there are things he’s been unaware of, and there’s been little to no answers from the human world about what he is other than an oddity that if discovered would likely get him locked away for experimental or “safety” purposes. They made movies like that. People liked to torment what they didn’t understand all for the sake of better understanding it. After all, it’s not like turning into a fox is some sort of superhuman power. This isn’t Superman or Captain America dashing across the screens to save humanity from themselves (or the convenient alien life form hell-bent on annihilation). He’s just Keith. A guy with an ability he knows is as intrinsic to his nature as blue is to the earth’s sky. And he’s sitting here across from a guy who could have played Captain America but would rather insist this fox thing is worth looking into a bit deeper. 

Like it went any deeper. 

“So, what exactly are you then?” Keith finally spits out. His words still carry the sharp edge of distrust to them, not unlike throwing tacks across the ground and asking someone to still walk over to you. “Say I believe that Allura here is a goddess, who are you, Shiro?”

At the other end of the table, Allura snorts over a laugh. She issues a soft apology that doesn’t sound the least bit apologetic, and even if she had tried to make it sound genuine, the smile barely containing another laugh would have shattered the illusion. She waves her hand in front of her like she could simply dismiss her reaction the same way a line cook swept away the smoke from a hastily downed cigarette on a break he wasn’t supposed to have taken. 

Clearing his throat once more, Shiro sits back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest. There’s a dusting of pink across his cheeks that looks oddly out of place on him. Or maybe just the given moment. “I thought we had covered this when you woke up. . .”

“Enlighten me again,” Keith cuts back, unabated. 

Shiro shifts again in his seat. He tosses a glance over at Allura, then draws his head back, chin tipped up. Authoritative. Unafraid. All the typical posturing of a man rising to the challenge and believing them still to be on his own terms. “As we mentioned, I’m similar to you. A kitsune.”

“You have a fox form then.” It’s not a question. It’s a fact asking for proof of its own existence. 

“I have several forms,” Shiro says, deflecting the demand in Keith’s statement. “And if you stay here, I could show you how to access all of them for yourself. Among other things.”

“Okay. . .so, if - ” Keith pauses there, setting his forearms on the table and leaning into them, “ - that’s the case, show me. You expect me just to sit here, take your word on all of this when I have never in my entire life encountered someone else like me. Show me, Shiro.”

Laughter floods the table from Allura’s end. She’s got a hand pressed against her mouth, but there’s a sparkle in her eyes that makes Keith think of tropical waters and carefree summer nights. Again, she cuts her hand in the air before her until her laughter subsides. “Oh, I like him, Shiro.”

“Allura. . .” The name falls from Shiro’s lips like a plea.

“Show him already! He has a right to see that he’s not alone in this world, and it’s not like you weren’t excited realizing that for yourself either,” she replies, leaving no room for any contradiction in her tone. 

Defeat works its way over Shiro in the form of a sigh and a drop of his shoulders. The corner of his mouth twitches in what Keith thinks is a small fit of irritation before they pull to a tight, seamless line. Perhaps, at another time, in another life, Keith might have called the whole thing off, but he needed to see for himself that this isn’t all some fever dream of the dying. He needs to know that he is truly here, at this very moment, experiencing a world of mind-fuckery that would have had most boardroom executives clamoring over themselves on how best to package and sell it to the world. Like the world doesn’t have enough problems and ways to run from those problems already. 

What Keith needs to know, perhaps more than defining this as reality, is that Shiro is telling him the truth: that he isn’t so alone in this world.

Shiro pushes his chair away from the table, a soundless gesture, and rises to his feet. The look he gives Allura is thinly-veiled resignation with just a smidge of annoyance. Keith imagines it must have been the irritation that set her to smiling. Nothing more is spoken between them, however. Shiro takes a step back from the table, surveys the area around him with a critical eye, then looks directly at Keith. 

Half a breath is drawn, a blink taken, and Shiro is no more. Well, he is, just not as the Shiro Keith had come to know him as. Instead, in his place, is a fox that has no right calling itself a fox. It stands nearly as tall as the table, ears just peeking over the edge. Keith’s own form, while a bit bigger than most red foxes, can easily be explained as a larger but still acceptably sized specimen. Shiro, on the other hand, is something of a monstrosity. He takes a seat, settling in just beside his boots, and wraps his tail around his figure. Looking as regal and unperturbed as the stonework guardian that sat outside their local shrine. Both tail end and ear tips are dipped in white, while his muzzle, aside from the jet black nose, looks as if it had been dipped in smoke. There’s a thicker band of white running across his nose, but its margins are muddled by the lighter colored hairs around it. Not quite as distinct as the scar that sits across human Shiro’s skin. 

“So, you’re a fox. . .” Keith breathes out, voice soft with newly burgeoning hope. He doesn’t want to believe there could be more, and yet, here is Shiro, staring at him with the same gray in his eyes. “You don’t see black foxes often though. . .I’ve never seen one.”

Shiro flicks his right ear, giving Keith the impression of a shrug. 

“He’s the only black kitsune in this world. Most are red, especially in their younger years, or a reddish-gold. A rare few are white, though those no longer exist,” Allura explains, her words growing quieter with every fact she lays bare. As the last few syllables drop from her lips, she turns toward Shiro, a soft smile, tragic in its beauty, moving over her mouth. “Should I have your kimono retrieved?”

The fox shakes his head. After another moment, he tips his head to the side, attention attuned to Allura, and when she nods her head at him, he appears to let loose a small sigh. 

“You said those types of. . .kitsune no longer exist. Why?” 

Whatever had passed between Shiro and Allura at that moment had left Keith feeling like he was leafing through a history book whose pages had been torn out. And those missing bits of text? Those had contained all the important, painful bits of history so many liked to forget and yet was so ingrained in what came after that erasing it would obliterate the present moment. Keith knows you don’t get to forget the pain that helped make you; you simply learn how to coexist with it until it no longer comes knocking on your doors in the middle of the night looking for someone to unload on. 

Allura smiles at him, with the same gentle understanding she had offered to Shiro. “Have you ever come across the word Galra, Keith?”

He shakes his head at that, though there’s an odd thought wiggling around in the back of his mind that he wants to grab but keeps eluding him. He’s not familiar with the term. Keith knows that much, but the mention of it stirs something ancient inside of him. Rather than dig it up, he focuses on Shiro, the darkness of his coat and how he feels like he could lose himself to it.

“The Galra are part of this realm. I believe Shiro has a habit of calling it the unearthly realm, but it’s been called everything from Hell, which I assure you it is not as that’s an entirely different place altogether, to Yōkai Town and any variation thereof. Around two thousand years ago, the Galra formed when several of the Neko clans banded together.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith cuts in, unable to stop the small curl of a smirk, built entirely upon self-assured disbelief, from taking his lips, “but are you telling me a group of cats formed some sort of union here?”

“Well, they’re not just any old cats, Keith,” Allura replies, upping his smirk with a smile comprised of complete and total righteousness. The sort that makes itself known when someone has all the necessary facts and hasn’t bothered to share them yet. A just-you-wait-and-see sort of smile. “They’re a mix of bakeneko and nekomata, who now exist under the singular Galra clan. They are one of the largest factions of this realm. Perhaps the largest. . .”

At this point, Shiro has given up on sitting all prim and proper and has laid himself out over his clothes, head resting on outstretched forelimbs. He has one ear twisted towards Allura and the other pricked forward in Keith’s direction. His gaze, however, remains trained entirely on Keith. He’s not sure whether he’s to be flattered by the attention or concerned, but Shiro, for his part, looks about as concerned as a moth approaching the flame. It’s a place Allura is taking them, whether Shiro wants to be part of it or not. And in his fox’s form, Keith can’t tell whether this conversation is something Shiro wants to be having. 

“And I should be concerned with them why exactly?” 

He turns his attention back to Allura, though Shiro’s presence continues to ghost along his periphery. For some reason, Keith can’t shake him. 

Picking up her wine glass, Allura hums out softly then takes a sip. Her mannerisms are delicate, like watching a cherry blossom petal fall to the ground, and screams in complete opposite to the fire burning its way through her gaze. “Because the Galra have tried on numerous occasions to overtake this realm all for the purpose of infiltrating the human one.”

“Yeah, and from what I’ve been able to see, you guys can enter that world. Shiro could at least.”

“That’s true,” Allura confirms. “There is nothing to stop the inhabitants here from moving into the other world. They aren’t, however, meant to influence the human realm. At least, not to any notable degree. That’s for humans themselves to do as decided by all the realms over two thousand years ago.”

“I’m not following,” Keith says. 

From his spot on the floor, Shiro gives a soft woof of sound, not unlike a laugh. 

“And I didn’t ask for your opinion either, Shiro.”

“He has a point, Shiro. If you’re not going to add to this conversation, kindly keep your quips to yourself.”

There’s a flash of a canine tooth, long and pointed, in response to that, but it carries no more threat to it than a paper airplane could a warhead. 

“And as for your lack of understanding, Keith, that’s to be expected. The Galra once waged war on this realm, the last attempt being some twelve-hundred years ago. They’ve been quiet ever since.” A pause there, her nose scrunching up. “Mostly quiet,” she amends, “but their influence is great across this realm, and for some of those still here, their effect has not been. . .kind. As a kitsune, I feel it is only right to tell you to be wary of them, Keith. Certain members of that clan have had an. . .unhealthy interest in your kind, and though there have not been any incidents in some time, I would still urge caution. They are not a group to be easily trusted. Granted, there are many here I would watch yourself around.”

“So, it’s no different than being around people. Got it.”

“Well, I suppose that’s debatable,” Allura says, flustered. She gives her wine glass a tilt, watching as the liquid paints the insides a rich purple. “Shiro, how long do you plan on just laying there?”

It’s the quiet thumping of a tail that draws Keith’s attention to the fox. Shiro’s ears are laid back flat, his head turned toward Allura, tail still wagging like appeasement could be bought with such gestures. Every ounce of his body suddenly submissive. Why Keith decides at that moment to finish off his wine, he’s not certain. But a certain sense of wanting to bury himself washes through him as Shiro continues to make his point.

“We’ve been over this before. . .and as much as Coran dotes on you at times, he is not your errand boy.”

With every word Allura tosses at him, Shiro’s tail begins to slow. . .slowing. . .slower still. . .stopped. 

“Oh, for the gods’ sake, Shiro, he’s seen other men naked!”

Keith nearly chokes, clamping his mouth shut suddenly so as not to spray the table and its remaining occupant with half-swallowed wine. Graceful, he knows. A sputtering cough consumes him after he forces the liquor down, more fire and brimstone than heady delight. It’s the last thing anyone would want to end a meal on. Shiro’s head immediately jerks over at him, ears forward, expression flooded with concern. As for her part, Allura looks entirely unrepentant. 

“I thought. . .” Keith wheezes around a cough. He stops, holding up his hand to indicate he is in no way finished with this, to take down half a glass of water, before continuing. “I thought you said you didn’t pry into people’s lives if they didn’t invite you.”

Allura blinks at him. “I didn’t. I just assumed given your town’s reputation for its hot springs that would have been the case.”

The look dancing in her eyes, however, doesn’t convince Keith of that statement’s truth. 

“Whatever. . .” He glances over at Shiro. “Does this mean we can go?”

Head dropping to the floor with a notable thud, Shiro lets out a rather wolfish groan. For a moment, Keith thinks he’s about to be left on his own to navigate a labyrinth palace with who knows what skulking through its halls and likely no real exit. He knows these sorts of places - they haunted the nightmare factories of all good horror films. Round and round and round, he would go until either the place itself or some friend-turned-foe hunted him down. And the kicker? There was never going to be a way out. 

Not that he’s going to resign himself to that sort of fate, but before he can protest it, Shiro is standing before him, hand cupped over his groin and a handful of scars scattered across his body like the far-flung planets of a forgotten galaxy. They’re the stories no one really wants to talk about. Keith knows a bit about those too, enough at least, to not ask unless the circumstances were right. And it takes a lot to get the conditions right for that brand of conversation. . .or a hell of a lot of liquor. 

Besides, it’s hard not to notice other things about Shiro. Like how big the guy actually is without his clothes. Broad shoulders, biceps Keith could break his jaw on (fox or otherwise), thighs that might have made Hercules himself jealous. And a set of triangular ears perched on top of his head, vacillating between an upright stance and pressed flat back out of what Keith presumes is some semblance of embarrassment. He only guesses on that because of the blush bright on Shiro’s cheeks. Shiro shifts his weight. Keith’s gaze drops rather unceremoniously to his cock as the hand over it adjusts itself. 

“You have a tail,” is all Keith manages to spit out. 

Big, black, fluffy. It’s a full fox tail wagging behind Shiro with all the slowness uncertainty can put into a movement. 

“I do,” he replies. “It’ll go away in a minute though. Otherwise, I couldn’t get back into my pants.”

“But the ears, huh?” 

Is he fucking smiling? Gods be damned because he is. 

“Since we’re here, they can stay,” Shiro says, and there’s a smile over his lips that nearly drops Keith’s heart into the abyss. The ears, though, that might take some getting used to. “Do you mind?”

“Does Allura get to watch?”

The question is out before Keith can catch the tail of it over his tongue. You know those moments, where the letters are all lining up, and you swear they just ran through your head, and next thing you know, there those words are, hitting the air with all the full force of a hurricane. And the only thing Keith can do is sit there, wondering what the devastation will be in their wake. 

“Oh, well. . .considering how many times I’ve witnessed it over the years, it’s lost its charm, I suppose. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what all the fuss is.”

She sounds about as bored as that statement would imply. Keith doesn’t know whether to be impressed or slightly offended on Shiro’s behalf. With an exhale, he settles for something in between, turning his gaze to the remnants of the meal over his plate. From his periphery, he catches the flash of movements, of white skin and black cloth, and decides to drown the rest of his imagination in the last of his wine. This time he doesn’t choke.

*

“Where are we going now?”

After Shiro had changed, discarding his tail and keeping the ears, Allura had sent them on their way. To do ‘whatever it is Shiro deemed necessary’ - her exact words. Keith still had no idea what that actually meant, and Shiro hadn’t been as forthcoming in the details. Instead, he had taken Keith through the palace, with its star-swept floors and bamboo forest walls, until a set of double doors had appeared before them, as large as the holes cut into mountainsides for the passage of trains. They were a soul-scouring obsidian, as heavy as the deepest parts of night, and when Keith had stood face-to-face with them, he could see a network of flowers carved across their surface. When he had reached out to touch one of them, fingers tracing lightly over a tightly closed bud, it burst open, silver light rippling across its petals. He hadn’t touched any others, but seconds later, the doors had swung open with a bone-cracking groan. 

What waited for them outside was a world of night. The same world Shiro is currently leading Keith through. The pathway out of the palace had been lined with evenly placed stones, as black as the doors had been, but with each step forward, pink light shot out from beneath their bases, illuminating their way forward. He could hear the trickling of running water nearby, more stream than river, but couldn’t see a damn thing outside of the pathway itself. The closer they got to the exit, however, the more the world started to define itself. Small blue lights began dancing in the air, no bigger than fireflies and just as erratic in their movements. Lining the path was a variety of plants, no taller than his knees at the highest, their greenery overshadowed by bursts of colors that popped into existence only to fizzle out and die seconds later. A firework show of blooms, without all the thunder and smoke. And at the very end of it all, a large pond with a surface as still and dark as the dying's last breath. 

Shiro hadn’t given him any time to take it all in. He only promised they would be back, at some indeterminate time, and threw open a set of gates, whose wrought-iron intricately carved out a series of interlinking plum blossoms. The framework of the gates was black; the flowers were white and nearly blinding. Keith had blinked as Shiro closed them shut, and when he had opened his eyes, there was nothing. No metalwork, no quiet rush of water, no shadow palace looming in the darkness. 

“You only find it when it needs to be found,” Shiro had explained, smiling benevolently. Like kindness could somehow excuse the absurdity of the entire situation. 

Keith hadn’t replied. Not because he lacked any thoughts on the matter, but simply because he couldn’t find the words to properly voice them. With a flick of his ears, Shiro had led him further away, and the further they traveled, the more the world started to etch itself out of the darkness like some Rorschach painting. It started with the streets, well-worn cobblestone interspersed with patches of dirt. Then came the sky, an endless stretch of navy-gone-black, that sparkled with starlight. The occasional cloud would drift by, small, cottony things that trailed out into wisps like the forgotten remnants of dreams. After what felt like a mile of walking through an inkblot, Keith eventually found the moon, bright and silver and beaming. 

He had a hard time thinking Alice’s world could be any more fantastical than this one. And this realm isn’t confined to the pages and arguments of the literary world. 

As another cloud scrapes across the moon’s surface, Shiro stops to whistle at it. Unmistakable appreciation. Keith can only stare at him. In this world, it’s oddity heaped on oddity, all combining to form this land of nightmare fodder. 

“A clear moon is a good sign here.”

“There are bad signs?” Keith asks, still looking at Shiro. 

At the question, Shiro’s mouth takes a downward turn. Something dark and ominous slinks into his gaze soon after. “A red moon is bad. A purple moon worse, and no moon. . .You won’t see that though. There hasn’t been a moonless night in several centuries.”

“Shiro, half the day is without the moon.”

“Not here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that this place never sees the sun, Keith. We’re different here,” Shiro says, mouth quirked with the makings of a smirk. The darkness in his eyes is gone, whatever it had been, now replaced by the same warmth Keith has come to associate with the man. “In case you haven’t been able to tell yet.”

“Oh, I’ve seen it,” Keith mutters with a snort. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

Shiro moves forward again, his left ear swiveled toward Keith. The path continues trekking ahead of them, stonework and dirt, and on either side of it now, a line of fences hemming in fields with waist-high blades of grass. Shiro pays no attention to the fields and what’s within them. Instead, he digs his hands into the front pocket of his pullover like he might find an answer tucked away in there. “The Henge District. It’s where I live. . .”

“So, you don’t live at the castle?”

“I’m a celestial messenger, but I’m not celestial in origin. I couldn’t live in the castle,” Shiro explains.

“Is that why the castle disappeared?” Keith realizes he’s starting to lag behind Shiro, unable to keep his attention from roaming around the landscape. Buildings start popping up among the fields, a little dilapidated but most with yellow lights flickering beyond their windows. Shacks, really, if Keith wants to be honest. The sort of place you’d run up to if you had no other place to go, which is to say, not the first place Keith would think of seeking refuge. From the crest of their angled roofs, birds flap their wings in the languid manner of the unhurried. Keith has the distinct impression they’re being watched and trots to catch up with Shiro.

Just in time to catch the shake of Shiro’s head. “The castle is always there, but it’s not open to everyone in this realm. You either have permission given ahead of time, or you’re like me, who has indefinite access. There are the rare few can find it if their intentions are pure enough.”

“And that celestial messenger thing - that’s what makes you so special?”

Shiro glances over at him as both ears tune themselves into something further down the road. “You could say that.”

“I take it not just anyone can become one of those,” Keith says, more as an afterthought. The idea of it is so outside of his realm of believability (and honestly, it’s more that it’s an unreachable thought for him personally, so he ties a stone to it and lets it sink without remorse) that he simply discards it. One of those truths that don’t have the ability to touch him, even as it undeniably exists. At least, he thinks it exists. He is walking here after all, and there’s definitely air filling his lungs. Air which is slowly flooding with the scent of burning wood, and sizzling fat, and a delectable array of herbs and spices that make him forget he had just consumed a meal. 

“You’re right,” Shiro affirms. “Not just anyone from this realm can attain that status, but you have that potential just by being what you are.”

“And what’s that?”

“A kitsune.”

“Yeah, you guys keep saying that, Shiro. But. . .” Keith pauses, rolling his next words around on his tongue. Tasting them, and still finding them as bitter as he knows them to be. “How come I’ve been this thing, and yet I’ve never found this world?”

Something in that question must have tripped Shiro up. The next thing Keith knows, they’re stopping on the top of a hill, overlooking the outskirts of a small city, and there’s a furrow between Shiro’s brow, trying to dig itself right into his skull. 

“I don’t know actually. There have been a few who have forsaken the unearthly realm and live out their lives in the human one. There are also half-breeds, yōkai and human, who were born into the human realm. Most yōkai abandon them to that world with their human parent. They might live a little longer than most humans -” Shiro shakes his head here, a frown courting his mouth once more “- but considering most yōkai live centuries. . .”

“You’ve been alive for more than a century,” Keith interjects. He’s still trying to wrap his head around that one.

“Kitsune are a bit different. If we make it that long, at least.” Shiro clears his throat. The change in topic is impending, kicked off by the way Shiro tips his head towards the city. The frown dissipates, revealing a smile once more. This one, Keith notes, is not as genuine as the others. More sleight of hand (or mouth in this case) than honest emotion. It’s an attempt to recover something before something even bigger buries it. “I live just a little further into this district. But the town stretches out farther than that. I thought giving you a view of it from here might help put it into perspective for you.”

Whatever else Keith might have wanted to ask about Shiro, his lifespan, and everything else that sits like a dark cloud around him gets shoved to the back of his mind. Maybe he’ll have another opportunity. Maybe he’ll simply leave this place behind and forget he ever had roots tied to it. He’s lived this long without knowing about it. . .

Even so, he casts his gaze down over the ‘town’ as Shiro had called it. There are two large posts flanking either side of the town’s entrance, and strung between, five lanterns glowing with bright red light. The longer he stares at it, the weirder the whole set-up seems. It’s only when one of the lanterns shifts, bowing itself towards its right-sided neighbor as if sharing a secret, that Keith figures it out. Though there’s a thick black rope spanning the gap between the posts, the lanterns aren’t attached to them. They’re hovering there, free of will and mind, to interact as they please. 

Beneath them, the road evens itself out. Less earth, more stone. None of the shimmer the palace’s floors had had. Not quite as dull as dirt tended to be. As it flows beneath the gates and into the town, it diverts into smaller pathways, some so narrow Keith isn’t sure a cat, with all its liquid-bone movements, could slink through them. Strung out in rows above the main roadway, multicolored paper lanterns sway in a breeze he can’t feel from here. They throw shadows across the building faces, a kaleidoscope of hues. Every so often, something darts out from one shadow into the next, like a mouse stealing for cover. Keith follows one particular shadow-creature as it moves from building to building and eventually disappears in the doorway of a rather packed house. A bar maybe? He can barely make out the purple lettering glittering above the entrance. 

——— Parlor. He feels like it’s a name worth fully deciphering once he gets the chance. 

“What time of day is it for you all?” Keith asks, voice soft with wonder.

Shiro laughs, then rubs at the tip of his nose as he turns to look out over the town. “It’s around two in the morning.”

“Does this place ever sleep?”

“Everyone moves to their own schedule. And because of that, nothing here is ever closed. Well, a few of the market stalls might be depending on the mood of the owner. . .but the big places? You’ll always find a welcome there.”

This time, Keith is the one laughing. The sound dwindles over his lips, drawing quieter and quieter still until Keith is simply left smiling down at the town and all its strange life. Something shifts inside of him then, like pushing aside a blanket and exposing his heart to the cool touch of reality. 

“It sounds nice, Shiro. But, I think I need to go home.”

*

Keith isn’t about to go making any grand claims about his apartment. Nor does he issue Shiro any warnings on it either, though he feels the watermarked facade and baby blue paint peeling on the railings served as enough of one. It had been the cheapest in the area, but more importantly, as long as rent is paid on time, the manager doesn’t give two shits about what went on there. Which is pretty much all Keith cared about given certain. . .things about him.

“Would you rather I waited out here?” Shiro questions, peering curiously through the door Keith had left open. 

“I thought you were just escorting me back,” Keith replies.

And he had thought that to be his intention. After telling Shiro he wanted to return, there had been a moment where disappointment had painted Shiro’s face more human than most of the people he had come to know in his life. (Surprising, really, how the humanity can be stripped out of human expressions when certain things are on the line - like cash payments, sex - and the pay off isn’t what they expected.) It hadn’t been about letting him down, Keith had realized, but about losing hope. When Shiro had looked at him, he had looked at Keith like he had found something irreplaceable. Only, he couldn’t understand what that was. Things got lost all the time. People failed to live up to expectations on a daily basis. The world still kept turning. 

There are other kitsune. Allura seemed to have alluded to that much. Shiro, too. 

Yet, standing there on that hill, with the lights dancing in the distance and a whole other world waiting for him, Shiro had looked like a man who was watching his last chance at life slip through his fingers. And that. . .that image wouldn’t stop ramming itself into the back of Keith’s eyes. 

“I know you said that you wanted to come back. . .” Shiro says, still lingering in the doorway. 

Maybe it’s the stack of pizza boxes haunting the first few steps inside the apartment that did it for him. Though it just as easily could have been the army of unwashed laundry skulking over his futon, or the mini-fridge screaming empty from the kitchen. He’s not making excuses. The last time he’d step foot in here had been ten days ago, right after paying rent and realizing it left him nothing for dinner. 

Keith steps back from the closet, a duffle bag hanging from his hands. It’s the largest one he owns, and he figures he’s going to need it.

“. . .have you changed your mind?” 

Hope coats Shiro’s words, and Keith positively loathes the way his heart soars at the sound of it. 

This is more than that though. All it took was a single glance around his apartment, at the half-lived-in state of it all, the carelessness of the life that inhabited it, to make himself question his desire to come back at all. He doesn’t know what Shiro can offer him, or if he’s going to like what he’s about to learn, but at the end of it all, he knows how to survive in the human world. So, if things fail him, he doesn’t necessarily have to fail himself. 

“You said you could teach me things,” Keith states. He turns to face Shiro directly. In the flickering yellow of the walkway light, he sees only the cut of a man. No more fox ears. No betrayal of a tail. Just Shiro as he had been when Keith had first laid eyes on him: scar, white tuft of bangs, broad build. As human as any other Keith had known in this world. Maybe even more so. “If I like what you have to say, maybe I’ll stay around on your side of things. If not -” he shrugs, smiling a bit cheekily, “- it’s not like I don’t have nothing to come back to. I built a life before you, Shiro. I can do it after.”

Laughter floods the doorway. Shiro smiles at him, genuinely amused, and rubs at the back of his neck. “Do you think so little of me?”

Keith shakes his head. “I barely know you.”

“You can still have thoughts on me.”

“And I do. Maybe one of these days I’ll tell you them.”

“Guess I’ll just have to have a little patience.”

“Guess you will,” Keith answers, unable to stop a smile from echoing Shiro’s. He huffs out a small bit of laughter, wondering where this feeling even came from. Is it the thought of starting something new? Of maybe learning something more about himself? Of dispelling the shadows that have haunted his past like a starvation-driven wolf? It comes with a fearlessness Keith has always known and generally took for granted. To say that part of him didn’t fear the potential answers he might find would be a lie. He’s spent the better part of his life wondering why he could do the things he could when he knew no proper human being couldn’t. And with that knowledge, there came the fear of being discovered, of knowing what would likely become of him. Worse, the knowledge that in the event the world learned about him, his life would cease to be his own. 

And yet, here stands Shiro, looking as human as the rest, a thousand years old, and yet not a day over twenty-five. If he hadn’t seen the ‘unearthly realm’ for himself, Keith would think this to be the most elaborate organ-harvesting scheme in the world. 

“I’m not actually dead, am I?”

Shiro blinks at him, confusion knitting his brow into a wrinkled line. “The whole point of me saving you was so that you didn’t end up dead.”

Keith hums out at that. “Huh. . .just checking.”

More laughter from Shiro, the sound of it filling Keith with a giddy sort of warmth. Not quite the euphoria of hearing someone tell you they love you for the first time (that someone that honestly meant something to you), but the kind you get when you’ve been given another chance at life. Maybe Keith doesn’t deserve that much, but Shiro is giving it to him anyway. 

He turns to scan his apartment. Nothing worth needing in the kitchen, that’s for sure. The pizza boxes. . .should probably be thrown out. A task for their exit. Pulling a few things off their hangars - two shirts, a leather Moto jacket, one well-worn well-loved red hoodie, Keith starts running a list through his mind. Underwear would be in the top drawer of his dresser, which is actually one of those stackable plastic bins he had bought at Ikea a few months ago. In the bin below that, pants, which were mostly jeans aside from one pair of boardshorts he had bought for a trip to the beach that had been his first and last visit there. (Beaches did not make for good fox territory.) Once he’s collected the clothing necessities, including a few extra T-shirts, Keith gathers toiletries from the bathroom, and finally, snags the remainder of his cash, hidden in a plastic bag at the bottom of his tea canister. 

“That should probably do it,” he muses. No point in putting the futon away now. As for the various articles of clothing he pulled from the pile lounging over top of it. . . “Yōkai, demons, ghosts. . .whatever. . .I’m assuming if they wear clothing, they have a means of washing it?”

Which brings him back to one last thing. The kimono. The first thing Keith had done upon arriving home was change right out of it. That he had folded neatly and set on top of his small dining table (really it’s more of a nightstand, but when space is a commodity and money always running short, you learned to make the best use of everything). He drops the duffle bag at the table’s base, gaze drifting towards the pizza boxes. 

“Yeah. Everyone has something different - some prefer to go to the lake. Most have basins.”

“What do you have?”

Shiro quirks an eyebrow at him. “Washer and dryer.”

“So, the unearthly realm has electricity,” Keith says, a teasing lilt to his voice. He can’t help it. The idea is pretty fucking amusing. 

“We have. . .energy,” Shiro replies. 

Keith doesn’t miss the strange little twitch at the corner of his mouth when he says that. 

“Energy,” he repeats. 

“Energy,” Shiro echoes. 

No further explanation at that. Keith decides he doesn’t particularly care about the details. If it works, it works, and if he’s in that world long enough, he’s going to figure it all out at some point. For now, it’s about getting the basics, trying to figure out if he has a place there to begin with at all. And if that place isn’t with Shiro, can he still carve out one for himself? 

“I’m just gonna run those boxes down to the trash, then that should do it.”

Shiro arches an eyebrow at him. “I can do that. . .” His lips remain parted, forming a soft ‘oh’ in the wake of his words. Like there’s something more he needed to say. Something that caught him by surprise. Not some big explosion of a revelation, but the quiet kind that leaves you questioning just how to proceed. He breathes out, then gestures toward the walkway. “You’re not taking the cat? They do pretty well in our realm.”

The cat. . .? 

Keith blinks over at Shiro. His gaze then drops to Shiro’s feet, where a small orange tabby wraps himself around Shiro’s boots. “Mika?” He shakes his head. “He’s not mine. None of them are. I’m not sure where he even came from. Just one day, cats.”

He nods his head towards the open door, indicating the darkness out beyond the reach of the apartment’s tired lighting. Keith has never seen anything illuminated more than five feet beyond the walkways, as though the tenants were burden enough on it and the building couldn’t spare the energy to its various light bulbs. Hardly a guiding light, but for most nights, it sufficed. Especially with his enhanced vision. 

“Watch out for Kova though,” Keith tosses out there like an afterthought. 

“Which one is Kova?” Shiro asks. His gaze is focused on the blackness lurking across the street. 

“The tortie with yellow eyes and a clipped right ear. She only likes the old lady downstairs. That’s who named her.”

“Huh,” Shiro puffs out, his gaze still locked on the empty street. 

“Try to get close to her, and she’ll take out your eye. Or attempt it at least.”

“Did she show up with the others?”

Keith shrugs. “More or less. Are you helping me with the pizza boxes or not?” 

When Shiro turns to look at him, he sees it. The way the gray of his eyes has turned to mist and swirls around his irises like smoke caught on the wind. He blinks. The color settles back into steel, immovable. “Yeah. I’ll gather them if you want to collect your things.”

“Make sure you put them in the right receptacle,” Keith instructs. He hasn’t stopped looking at Shiro, however, waiting to see if the color of his eyes shifts again. Hoping that he hasn’t lost some part of himself already to whatever Shiro seemed to promise. 

Because sometimes. . .sometimes dreams are merely nightmares in disguise. Just in the same way that gold can flake off when good intentions start to show their falsehoods. 

There had been genuine concern in Shiro’s gaze though. Keith wants to believe in that. Maybe he just wants to believe in something better for himself. 

Shiro smiles. Reassuring. Keith hates to think that the man can read his thoughts. “Are you always this dutiful?” 

“It’s law, Shiro.”

“I caught you trying to steal from someone’s trash.”

“I was a fox then.”

“Who still knew what he was doing.”

“Necessity.”

A soft laugh slides over Shiro’s lips as he scoops up the pizza boxes with one hand. “So, you obey the rules when it suits you.”

Placing the duffle bag across his body, Keith pauses just long enough to glare over at Shiro. He adjusts the strap across his chest so it sits a little more comfortably, then turns to gather the kimono. With the better parts of his apartment strapped across his body, he finally starts walking towards the door. As he passes Shiro, he looks up at him. Square in the eyes, unafraid. Some things had to be laid out in order for others to proceed. Keith felt this is one of those things.

“I obey them unless I have good reason not to. And those reasons are for me alone to decide.”

Shiro stands there, holding his gaze, a smile half-cocked on his lips.

“You’re going to do great things.”

The fight sputters out of him, just like that. Like Shiro had come in and thrown open all the windows, and Keith is seeing sunlight for the first time in decades. All the shadows in his head gone for one brief moment. It’s like he can see himself for what he could be instead of trying to define himself by the preconceived notions of a world that never could have fully understood him. 

Shiro smiles, and Keith remembers what it felt like to carry faith. 

“The bin to the left of the building with the green writing. Watch out for the cats,” he mutters. Turning his back on Shiro, he digs his keys out of his pocket and starts locking up his apartment. “I’ll meet you down there.”

He’s left alone with another laugh. Keith is glad for it. Across his cheeks, heat is blazing an unfamiliar trail and something in his core fractures off like an ice shelf too compromised to be carried any further. It crashes down in the darkness, the place inside Keith rarely likes to go. But he can feel it floating there, sinking, becoming part of his past. With a click, the door locks. Keith stuffs the keys hastily into his pocket. 

The darkness inside keeps making waves. Somewhere in the night, a cat yowls unhappily. Were he any other sort of creature, something more human, maybe the sound would have sent chills down his spine. Instead, Keith simply feels like he’s about to crash against shorelines, unable to stop his momentum. 

All he can do is brace for impact.


	3. Chapter 3

“Shiro. . .this. . .this isn’t working!”

He’s trying. Gods, he’s trying. Everything Shiro had told him - about shutting out the sound, about dropping into himself, about _being in the moment_. He’s reached for all of that, and the only thing Keith has ascertained is that he is nowhere. There is nothing here. His thoughts scattered, his heart echoes away, and this thing he’s been trying to catch hold of? Absolutely nowhere. 

What he does know is that there is energy all around him. Shiro was right about that part - it’s different here in the unearthly realm. It’s not about creating it or conducting it. It simply exists in the very air that he breathes, and if he fixes his vision on it, he can see it. Because the air in this world shimmers. Every being here sees it differently, but for Keith, it’s a rainbow of color dancing through the air, like sunlight scattering over morning mist. It comes from human fears, and human hopes, and it’s fed by the denizens of this world who carry the same sorts of things. 

That had been history lesson number one: where they came from. This world is a product of human superstition. It hadn’t existed before humans were cognizant of that, even though its creatures did. Take the kitsune, for example. Shiro says they were some of the first to gain awareness. All the natural world beings are like this - the ones that pulled their lives from the various animals and fauna of the earthly realm that is. Humans aren’t as aware of their thoughts anymore, of the power that sort of energy carries, but it breathed life into others just as the gods infused it into the earthly realm. Human hopes gave rise to mountain gods. Those gods brought forth their messengers. And sometimes, those messengers became corrupted by human fears. 

And sometimes, human fears gave rise to other things. What Keith took from those stories, however, is how human cruelty gave life to beautiful, bitter things that tried to claw out a place for themselves in any realm to free themselves from the pain that gave birth to them. 

Kitsune are a bit of the former, however. Heavenly messengers with too much spirit to ever rightly be controlled. Shiro doesn’t talk about his family, though he’s assured Keith he comes straight from a line of them. Foxes, that is. 

“It’s there, Keith. But you have to be willing to let go to find it. You have to trust your other side.”

Keith still has his eyes closed. Simply because it’s easier that way. Staring at Shiro, with all that patient expectancy on his face, only made Keith want to focus on smudging it out before it got the better of him. He breathes in deep, the air carrying smoke and rose, and exhales with tightly-reined effort. Something flickers in his mind, a lightning strike robbed of its thunder, then everything falls to black once more. 

“Shiro. . .” His voice carries the ground-up bits of his frustration. They’ve worked themselves quietly into his tone, but Keith can feel the roughness they give to his words. Sandpaper syllables washing over his faith. 

“Patience.”

A single word built on endless support. 

Keith licks his lips. He feels himself swimming in the darkness of his mind, chasing after thoughts that dart out of his way, as elusive as minnows in a forest stream. “What if I don’t have it? What if. . .what if I’m not what you think I am?”

Absolutely nowhere. A man with no real home, no real place, neither here nor there. Part monster. Too human. 

He opens his eyes with an exhausted sigh and finds himself staring at Shiro, who has seated himself on the kitchen counter opposite him. His legs are motionless against the lower cabinets, draped in the fabric of his kimono (it’s not quite black, not quite silver, and every time Keith looks at it, all he sees is smoke spilling like moonlight from some undetermined source, drifting, drifting, drifting across the silk until it dissipates and everything goes dark). His bare toes are exposed to the evening air. Shiro pauses in his current activity, which aside from supervising Keith, consists of devouring a shadow plum. A strange little piece of fruit, about the size of a human palm, with the consistency of a peach and flesh as black as a moonless night. It’s a favorite of Shiro’s - for its mellow taste, he’s said - but for all Keith can see, Shiro might as well have been eating the very heart of the midnight hour. 

“Well,” Shiro muses, licking at his thumb, “what do you think you are?”

He shrugs, shifting his gaze from Shiro to the window behind him, and beyond the clear-cut glass, to the sky beyond. Still dressed for dreams, all navy-hued and glittering with starlight. The moon’s nothing more than a sliver of silver hanging off to the left. 

“I’m me. Keith. Like I’ve always been.”

Shiro hums at that, a loose sort of sound that vibrates out of his throat. Completely underwhelmed. He lifts an eyebrow at Keith, the question being asked a simple enough one: _Is that it?_

“I can’t . . .” Keith starts, then abruptly stops. All around him shadows dance. Shiro had insisted it would go better like this, without the artificial lights glaring down over them. Relying only on his senses, on the parts of him that shiver with the anticipation conjured up by being in this realm with its rainbow-electric air and its gothic Wonderland inspiration. “It’s been a month already! I can’t _do_ what you do, Shiro! I’m not you. . .I don’t know how to find whatever it is I’m supposed to be searching for!”

The words explode out of him like a series of firecrackers, one after the other, igniting a fear inside of him with every pop of sound.

Rather than answer right away, Shiro fixes him with a stare, gray eyes gleaming in the faint moonlight, and finishes off the rest of his plum. He takes his time licking the juice from his fingertips, then sets the pit, a vibrant candy apple red, on the counter beside him. Through it all, his gaze doesn’t waver. Keith feels it like a shot through his chest, arrow-sharp and devastating.

He can’t run from this. Worse yet, he doesn’t want to.

“I’m not asking you to do what I do, Keith. I’m asking you to see what you can be. . .I know it’s there inside of you. The question is, do you want to believe it exists?”

“Yes.” Quick and breathless, that single word spills from him. Keith licks his lips, feels the ache in his chest swell, and finds he can’t look anywhere but at Shiro sitting there. The darkest bit of salvation Keith has ever known. And he doesn’t mean that in the traditional ways, the Heaven-and-Hell and all sinners be damned sort of way. Shiro is the flip side of the coin, the one that exists not as some kind of antithesis but rather as part of the natural order of things. 

Shiro is the promise that Keith has been waiting to make but still cannot find the words to create. But he can feel it there, building itself up out of shadows in his mind, among all the things Keith has told himself to forget, to set aside as ‘never to be his’ all because of what he was. Shiro is how Keith might start finding himself again. 

Enough to actually start loving it again. 

Slipping down from the counter, Shiro tightens up his obi. Like onyx polished to a star-darkening shine, it matches the blackest parts of his kimono, disappearing into the fabric as seamlessly as Keith’s own. But where Shiro is smoke and ember, Keith is raging fire. Despite the plethora of clean clothes in the room that had become his own, the kimono is what became routine wear for him in this world. Just as Shiro had said it would, it’s easier that way. The stares still find him, but it’s the strange sniffing of the air at his approach that’s all but evaporated since he started wearing it. After another breath, a set of fox ears carves itself from the shadows. The left flicks towards Keith just as the corresponding corner of Shiro’s mouth curves with a smirk.

“Then I guess we had better get a little help.”

Keith blinks at him. “Help how?”

Laughter rolls off Shiro’s tongue. “There’s something in the market I think might help. And luckily for us, he’s back this week.”

“Who is back?” Keith asks, curiosity creeping into the question. In all his time here, Shiro has yet to introduce him to anyone. Not that he hasn’t come across some of the district’s denizens, in all their varied forms, but most had given them a wide berth, whether on the street or in the market. Some had even stopped moving altogether at their approach, eyes pinned to the ground before them as fear stole the motion from their muscles. Once Keith had started wearing the kimono out, that particular reaction had ceased as well. Which answered his question as to why - the problem hadn’t been Shiro. “You’ve only ever mentioned Allura or Coran.”

Shiro turns to him with a grin. “Hunk.”

*

The night market.

Keith has accompanied Shiro here on several occasions, and the oddity of the place never ceased to strike him with its strangeness. Large as two city blocks, it sits on the borders of an even larger lake. Keith isn’t honestly sure how big the lake is, only that he thinks he can see lights flickering on the far-off shores. He also hasn’t been able to convince himself of that being the case entirely, as at any given time, there are lights dancing over the lake’s surface like wishes that lost their way. They burn a multitude of colors, hovering over the black waters, their bodies reflected as glowing smudges. Beneath the surface, Keith has seen lights too. These carry something ominous to them, electric as nightmares. Sometimes snapping off as suddenly as someone cutting the power to a building. Where there had once been unmistakable signs of life, there only existed the starkness of nothing. He wonders what part of him that fear comes from in regards to this lake - his human or his yōkai side. Or perhaps both, each knowing that something treacherous awaits those unfortunate enough to drown beneath these particular waters. 

Whatever lives there, doesn’t seem to cause the same caution in the night market’s dwellers. The stalls run right up to the docks. Various sizes. Various banners. Some simply declare the merchant’s name while others dazzle with what each stall claims as unique to it alone. There’s a set of stone steps that leads down to the market, cut out at various points in the grassy slopes that climb up to the city proper. Lighting the way down is a series of small yellow flames, one for each step, that stem from the ground. Shiro has assured him that plucking one is quite impossible, though they do have an appetite for fresh blood. 

From where they now stand, Keith can see the parade of colorful cloth tops strung out from a network of poles jutting out of the ground. Each color represents another stall. He has yet to find the same color in the patchwork of them. 

“You said this Hunk guy. . .he hasn’t been here?”

Shiro nods at that. “He has a job. Sort of.”

“Sort of,” Keith echoes, eyebrow lifted. Doing absolutely nothing to hide his bemusement.

“He’s a bit like me. But instead of helping out Allura and the celestials, he does errands for a local shrine. And by local, I mean local to him, not here.”

Silence takes its place on Keith’s tongue. There are about fifty questions he would like to ask, and yet neither of them seems to be capable of forming itself coherently enough for the actual asking. He tips his head, wrinkles his nose, then looks out over the market once more. “Guess we better go see this Hunk then. . .”

He gets a laugh for that, followed by a pat on his back as Shiro starts to descend the steps. No matter the point in the day, which according to this realm’s current time would be four in the afternoon, the market is always flooded with life. Keith trails closely in Shiro’s wake. He had overcome the urge to latch onto the back of Shiro’s kimono after their first visit, though the temptation had been more insistent than he cares to recall. Particularly after Shiro had stopped at a stall one day while Keith had kept walking until he rebounded off a rather large, rather solid being. Though it had stood on two legs, it had been covered from tip to toe with thick brown fur, and when it turned, had the face of a grizzly bear. It had snarled so viciously at Keith he thought he felt his soul scrambling to sever itself from his body before the creature had even finished its threat. He had stood his ground, however, and when it bent down to sniff at his hair, he didn’t flinch. Lip lifted, Keith caught the low grumble of _the fox’s brat_ before it turned to shuffle off down the lane. Since then, Keith made it a habit to follow Shiro as close as the lives clinging to a cat’s soul.

They wind their way through the outskirts of the market, passing stalls offering everything from fruits and vegetables to “trinkets” stolen from human stores and houses (these included everything from single socks to the surprisingly popular charms reimagining various yōkai from the year’s hottest video game). Normally, Shiro would work his way deeper, where the more specialized shops resided. Stalls that carried various spices and herbs, others artifacts stretching back as far as the dawn of life. Some selling the true rarities of this world while others simply the oddities. There’s one stall Shiro frequented that carried a certain species of a particular plant, its blooms a vibrant white that glowed beneath the moonlight. In addition to the alcoves by the front and back doors, he kept a vase of them in the kitchen, where they cast their ethereal light across the dark wood floors like a star’s heart, beating out the last of its days. They lived for weeks, Keith came to find out, but their light would gradually dim. Sometimes, it felt like Shiro’s light flagged with them too. He always fed the water they had been submerged in to the ember roses in the garden out back.

He tried to ask about them once, but Shiro had only smiled before asking him if he wanted to train again. The flowers, he had said, were just something he liked. They made it easier to keep going.

Shiro isn’t taking him that stall today. Instead, they keep to the market’s outer perimeter, skirting around shoppers and their stares alike. Eventually, the smells of the Finishing Court hit him, overriding the scents of the market itself. The Finishing Court is precisely what it sounds like - a place to finish. For some, it’s where meals were made of the ingredients just bought. For others, a chance to sit after a day of shopping and get a drink. As they enter the first row of food stalls, Shiro veers to the left, a quick glance behind to make sure Keith is still following, then proceeds down to the end of the first row. There’s a booth set slightly apart from the others, nestled beneath a large willow tree with leaves a deep purple hue. Set before it is two stools. Keith can see smoke swirling up from a grill behind the stall front, which simply has a large wing splashed across its banner in black. It’s one of those fierce rage-paint patterns, with black ink splattered around each of the five feathers that make up the wing, from large to small, in descending order. The symbol reminds Keith of a carefully contained riot. Please express yourself within these confines. Thank you for your cooperation.

“Long time, no see, Hunk!” Shiro calls out.

Pulling to a halt right behind Shiro, Keith peers around him just in time to catch a figure hauling a large box out from behind the tree. He stops, blinks in their direction, then waves as a grin spills over his lips. 

“Hey, Shiro! I thought you wouldn’t be by until later. . .” Hunk starts, but with every word his brow starts knitting itself together, his sentence slowing until all sound simply stops. Rubbing at his jaw, he steps out from the booth and looks Keith up and down as one might a stray dog. “Tell me the rumors aren’t true. . .”

“And what rumors would those be?” Shiro asks, smiling through it all. 

To Keith, though, the smile looks a bit strained. 

“That you didn’t kidnap some human for a pet. Like, I get it, the loneliness of being one of a rare few, but. . .” Hunk steps closer and curls a hand around his mouth like he’s sharing a secret better kept from the demonic world. Even if the incrimination in those words is completely and wholly demonic in nature. “. . .you know as much as I do that these things never end well. For the human. . .”

“Hunk.”

The shadows that had closed in around Hunk’s mouth had created a strange effect. Keith thought he had been seeing things, as he so often does in this realm, but as the man pulls back, he realizes he sees it still. The outline of a beak, shimmering around Hunk’s mouth. Hawk-like, with a small hook on the end. Blink, and he misses it. A tip of his head, and yellow cascades down the planes of it, disappearing half a second later like a dream before dawn. But as Hunk’s lips part for a smile, shamelessly sheepish, Keith sees it again. 

“You know I wouldn’t do anything like that.” Shiro nudges Keith, his smile relaxed and friendly once more. “This is Keith, and he’s another kitsune. I stumbled upon him out in the human world.”

 _Stumbled_ is putting it nicely. 

“He didn’t kidnap me or anything. I’m here because I want to be,” Keith states, staring Hunk down. He’s not sure why, but it’s like something raised the hackles along his neck, and had he been in fox form, there would have been a flash of canine to punctuate that statement. As it is, he stares like he can set fire to the sun and burn it out of existence. 

Hunk doesn’t look entirely convinced. With right hand cupping his chin, he tips his head back and surveys them both. Sort of like a pawn shop employee determining the actual worth of what’s being presented to him. “I don’t know, Shiro. Are you sure about that? I mean, is he actually a fox?”

“I’m a fox!” Keith blurts out. Indignation colors his cheeks red, his words redder still. “I don’t need him or you to tell me what I already know!”

The explosion of sound from him sends alarm rippling through Hunk’s body. He takes a step back, precariously balanced as he is on his geta with its single pillar of support. How he didn’t fall back, what with his. . .robust size, Keith doesn’t know. But he considers himself surprisingly impressed by the dexterity of the man, almost enough to forget his previous irritation. On the second step back, a pair of ebony wings shoots out in full expansion behind Hunk. The feathers glimmer beneath the moonlight, sleek as the Devil’s own cat, and only make the yellow of his robe seem all the starker in contrast. Like someone tried to shove the sun into the night and expected it to snuff out its own power simply because it was out of place. 

“Keith, there’s no need to get upset,” Shiro says. Softly. Full of a quiet, considerate consolation Keith doesn’t really want to hear. Turning to Hunk, Shiro sets him with a firm stare. “I brought him here, not just to introduce you both, but because I need some of Pidge’s fox nip wine.”

“Oh.”

The word drops from Hunk’s lips with all the heavy weight of a cinder block tossed into a pond. The kind of _oh_ someone gives you when they know full well what you mean, and rather than question how far you’re willing to go, simply accept the answer as reason enough. It’s the _oh_ you get when you’re not asking how best to kill someone, but how to best rid yourself of the body. 

Shiro has already committed himself to this with Keith. On the next breath in, Hunk appears to resolve himself to the task being asked of him. 

Keith still hasn’t recovered from the eruption of wings. He stands there, mouth gaping, before looking over at Shiro. “He has wings. . .”

Silence cuts through the tension sitting around them. It oozes out to soak into the ground and feed whatever creatures feed upon it, and leaves both Shiro and Hunk grinning by the time it’s completely deflated. Laughter sparks on tongues, bright and full of an incredulous sort of relief. Because yes, Keith really did say that.

“He’s a tengu. Shouldn’t you know about those at least?” Shiro breathes out after the fading notes of a laugh. 

The red that claims Keith’s cheeks this time is of a decidedly more subdued variety of embarrassment. His lips purse together as he debates answering. Shiro quirks an eyebrow at him. Hunk continues to chuckle, hands on his knees as he doubles over. 

“I know about them, okay. Just. . .I thought they were mountain gods or something. . .” he mutters. For being what he is, Keith never took much interest in the rest of the supernatural world. At one time, it had all seemed as improbable to him (read: _crazy_ by human standards) as a bleach white sky. Or endless night for that matter. All he had wanted at that time was a place to fit in. Talking about the reality of spirits and goblins hadn’t seemed like the best way to create that kind of place for himself.

Now, though. . .

“I didn’t think they operated food stalls and sold liquor to foxes.”

“Not just any liquor!” Hunk chimes in. There’s a glint to his eyes that borders on madness, and for a moment, Keith thinks fear might still be the more appropriate response. “This has been brewed especially for you guys. And not just by anybody. Pidge is like. . .a scientist for the mythical and impossible. She’s practically a god!”

“So, she’s another one of us then?” Keith asks, curiosity picking at his words. 

“Oh no. . .no, no, no.” Hunk waves his hands in front of him in complete denial of that association. “I mean, yeah, she’s a bit like a devil in some ways, but no, she’s definitely _not_ one of us. In fact, she’s everything we shouldn’t be associating with, but she seems to think we’ve got as much right to exist as humans and gods, so she’ll actually help us out if the cause is right.”

Confusion works itself over Keith’s mouth, tugging his lips into a semi-frown that’s actively trying to fight itself. 

“She’s a priestess,” Shiro supplies. 

“Like makes charms, and breathes omens, and banishes evil. That sort of priestess?” 

Hunk lets out a low hum at that. “Something like that, I guess. . .She can do all of that. Actually, she’s a lot better at it than her brother, though he’s no joke either. But at least he can’t see us. . .”

“Think of it this way - Pidge works for the gods too, but not at the expense of humans. She also realizes that some of us -” Shiro gestures to the trio of them. “ - work to maintain that same balance between all three worlds.”

“Don’t get me wrong though. I am definitely _not_ like Shiro. He went full-on gold and sold out to the higher beings that be. . .” Hunk’s words abruptly start to dwindle. He flashes a smile at Shiro, apologetic in the way that hopes for no potential recourse. “I’ve said too much, huh?” 

The novelty of Hunk’s wings, the beak that’s there but not, all of it has worn off. Keith finds himself entranced instead by the way Shiro’s expression dances through a variety of emotions. From the subtle pull at his lips as displeasure sets in, to a silent fear that crashes over his gaze like storm surge, turning the gray of his eyes almost lavender, to the quiet yet inescapable sorrow that softens his features and reminds Keith of how human Shiro can really be.

“The fox nip wine, right?” Hunk asks, quietly. “Is that why you’re out here walking around like someone from the earthly realm as well?”

Keith had never thought much on it. How Shiro always has his ears and tail visible whenever they’re alone together in his house like it’s the natural state of things, and yet once they leave the house, they disappear. Only when they leave together. He’s seen Shiro depart with them still intact, out there for the viewing for any who would look upon him. He licks his lips, tongue suddenly feeling as dry as sun-roasted desert.

“What’s he talking about, Shiro?”

Hunk mouths the word _sorry_ to Shiro then jabs his thumb at the box he had left sitting near the willow tree. “I’ll just. . .go get that. . .”

“Shiro. . .” 

He breathes the name out like a last hope. When Shiro looks down at him, well after Hunk had left them alone, there’s a solemn kindness in his eyes, just a bit heavy but still infused with warmth. 

“Remember last week when we came back from the market, and you started talking about things there. Not about the stalls and what was being sold, or even about the beings that live here. . .”

Did he remember? Keith wishes he could forget that moment. They had barely gotten through the back door, toeing out of their wooden sandals, arms loaded with the various items needed for the week as designated by Shiro, when the outburst had happened. There had been no talking involved. Just Keith standing there, frustrated, pouring his words out like steam from a burst pipe. No matter where he went or how polite he was, the stares didn’t stop, and neither did the comments, whispered under breaths but never quiet enough to escape his hearing. And he knew they were aware of that fact. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have said anything at all. But the words were spoken, and Keith always heard them, and it felt no different than the human realm with all its cliques and festering egos trying to find their salve in wounding others. 

“I wanted you to know that you weren’t walking alone,” Shiro continues. He sets a hand on Keith’s shoulder and gives him a gentle squeeze. “I’m here for you, Keith.”

“So, that’s why you hide them. . .because I can’t find mine?” His voice is quiet, raw in the way admissions strip it down. 

“We’re going to find it, Keith. You’ve got that fire in you. Each one of us does. . .it’s just a matter of getting you to that place.”

“How can you be so certain?”

He gets it then, why all those stories of faith always talk about suffering as if believing in something automatically signs you up for pain on its behalf. Because hearing it in Shiro’s voice is no different than cracking open his rib cage just so someone else can see his heart beating. Acknowledging that someone else believes in you is like that. Just as painful as believing in you all by yourself. 

Shiro chuckles then, low and soft and just for Keith. “Because I’ve seen you. . .”

Keith clears his throat and glances over Shiro’s shoulder to where Hunk is setting out several blue bottles. “And this fox nip stuff. . .?”

“Well, aside from being the best thing you’ll ever drink, it. . .lowers our inhibitions. Not like typical liquor does, though it will give you a pleasant feeling. It makes it easier to get in touch with the parts of you that hold your power. I think since you’ve been living the way you have for so long, you might have shut yourself off to that. ”

 _Think of it like a place you need to access. Somewhere that’s all your own._

That’s what Shiro had told him when they first started training. About finding his fire and letting the energy of this world feed into what was already inherent within him. Every time he had sunk deep enough into himself, it was like hitting a glass bottom, thick as an ice shelf. He could see there was further to go, but could never find the way to get down there.

“So, it’s like a locked door?”

Shiro nods. “Yeah, you could think of it like that. And the wine might just be the key you need to get inside.”

“But you can’t get drunk off of it?” Keith follows up. He feels the way his mouth starts to curve when Shiro takes a step back, caught off guard.

“Well, it’s possible. If you drink enough of it. . .”

“And how much is _enough of it_?”

Rubbing at his jaw, Shiro turns to look at the bottles lined up like toy soldiers just waiting for imagination to take hold of them. “For you? I don’t know. . .”

Keith blinks at that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shiro throws his hands up, palms to Keith. “Just that I don’t know. Everyone has their own tolerance level. But you’ll know the difference between the limits. The first one is always the one that opens you up to yourself. . .if you’re willing to go there. Have you ever been drunk before?”

No answer for that. Keith’s mouth sets in a firm line as he crosses his arms over his chest. There are milestones to be proud of in life. Getting shitfaced when his world felt like it had been collapsing all around him had not been one of those for Keith. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Shiro says. Not gloating. Not judging. Not even prodding. Just a fact taken, accepted with the same sort of understanding that makes Keith’s heart feel like it’s free-floating in his chest. “When you start to feel like _that_. . .That’s when you know you know you’ve had enough.”

“So, you know your limits with it then?”

A furrow works its way over Shiro’s brow. He clears his throat, then pulls his shoulders back until his kimono sweeps down his spine in one unerring line. It’s a bit like watching a locking sequence on a door - code input, the keypad lighting green with recognition, and the cascade of clicks as everything shuts itself behind ten-inch thick steel. Safe and sound. “I know my limits, Keith. That’s not something you need to worry about.”

“I wasn’t worried. . . was just asking,” Keith answers, a touch of petulant hurt glossing over his words. He doesn’t know why it bothered him. After all, there’s far more he doesn’t know about Shiro than facts that have laid themselves bare about the man. He knows that Shiro likes to drink tea first thing in the morning, a deep black brew with a whisper of anise to it, and that he keeps his house spotlessly clean (though with little by way of possessions that isn’t hard to do), and that most of the inhabitants of the Henge district revere him as some kind of god. Keith has gleaned that Shiro’s past is littered with achievements that elevated him well past the hometown hero stage, and the fact that he has been designated a celestial messenger only adds gold to all that glitter sparkling about his name. But he’s gotten the feeling that it’s more than that. He just hasn’t been able to find the words to pinpoint what that thing is.

“Is three bottles going to be enough, Shiro?” Hunk calls out from behind his stall. His head pops up a moment later, wings now tucked against his back. To allow him to stand back there more comfortably, Keith assumes. “I mean. . .I’ve got more, but this is potent stuff.”

“Three will be fine, Hunk,” Shiro replies. His shoulders have relaxed once more.

The hurt finds a way to prick at Keith’s heart, needle-thin and difficult to extract. He tries to ignore it. Just as one should with all things that threaten to make you bleed in ways you’d rather not think yourself capable of.

“Okay, cool. Also. . .” Hunk starts but waves his hand as he squeezes around the edge of his stall. He grabs the three bottles with one hand, and in the other, something gives a holographic glimmer. Bright and silver and with all the substance of spring air. When he finally stands before them again, Hunk exhales and first hands the bottles over to Keith. The sleeve of his robe rolls backs toward his elbow, exposing inkwork in the form of a snake coiling about Hunk’s forearm. Its tail disappears beneath the robe’s edge, but the head rests on top of Hunk’s hand. A living presence tattooed over skin, the black outlines of its body made all the darker by the golden silk bunched about his elbow. Keith feels its gaze on him, making it almost impossible to accept the bottles. Hunk offers them again, glass clinking, and with a steadying breath, Keith retrieves them.

No bite attempts made. 

“I ran into Allura on my way back.” The. . .thing keeps shimmering in Hunk’s hand. Transparent, but clearly taking the form of a small rectangle, and with each subtle twist of Hunk’s wrist, color ripples over its surface. “She asked me to give this to you. Said there shouldn’t be any questions.”

Shiro’s fingers close in on it, and as they touch, the mystery item takes solid form. A letter. Silver envelope with a single eight-pointed star encapsulated in white and embossed over its center.

“She said it’s not urgent, but also like. . .don't wait on it,” Hunk finishes up. 

“I’ll take a look at it when I get home. Thanks, Hunk. For everything.”

“Don’t tell me you’re leaving now? I’ve just finished setting up shop again! Not to mention, I managed to snag some tofu skin on my way back. . .”

Without warning, Keith’s stomach growls. His hands immediately rush to the source, covering it in the hopes of silencing any further sounds of protest. In direct defiance of that, his cheeks flare a vivid red. Shiro bursts into laughter beside him.

“You know what? An early dinner sounds like a nice idea. And we have time. What do you say, Keith? Hunk is the best chef in all these parts.”

There’s amusement dancing in Shiro’s eyes, but the smile on his lips is full of genuine warmth. Keith nods at the suggestion. His heart forgets it ever had anything to tether itself to his chest.

“Sounds good, Shiro.”

*

He likes Shiro’s house. Though he has yet to say as much. It’s felt more like home to him than any place he’s called his own over the last few years, even with all the lack of clutter and that missing beat-up-but-well-lived-in feeling. He thinks that’s just been his own perception of what a home should feel like as if filling it with any and all variety of things somehow makes it more personable. More you. Which isn’t to say that’s not true. There are bits of Shiro all over the place. It's more like Keith had spent his lifetime collecting all the things that should have made him seem more human, and thus carve a place for himself in the world, while realizing none of that ever brought him any closer to who he was. Being in Shiro’s house though? He’s never felt more like himself.

The wood floors barely creak, but they have the worn appearance that the oft walked lends to places. Smoother in the spots Shiro must frequently travel, with the grains readily visible, their swirls and patterns like makeshifts maps. Sometimes, Keith finds himself sketching out the pathways through the house and up the stairs. From the couch in the living room, he can see almost all of them, save for the lone hallway that runs alongside the stairway in a direct line from front to back door. Each has their own alcove beside it, filled with those brilliant white flowers from the market, as well as a place for their shoes. Shiro actually prefers to go barefoot around the house. Keith naturally found himself following suit.

When in Rome and all that shit. . .it's less of a hassle that way to be honest. And he likes it, the coolness of the wood beneath his feet. It makes him feel more grounded to this place, as though he is imprinting on it just as Shiro had for all these years. Or maybe it's imprinting onto him, weaving its ancient magic into his being. He’d heard stories like that too, how the older something is, the more life it takes on for itself. The more powerful its presence becomes. Some of those things, like the large trees of the forest, carry more wisdom in their fibers than the smartest claims put forth by any one human.

Shame that the world forgot how to listen. The earthly one that is.

Keith feels it now, that connectedness of being in the moment, surrounded by something far older than anything he could imagine. Shiro has said the house was nearly as old as he was, which put it somewhere around the millennial mark. Standing in Shiro’s kitchen, with three glasses of fox nip wine flowing through his veins, Keith feels the quiet of this place like another being. Large, enveloping, warm. It’s nothing worth fearing.

“Do you see it?” Shiro asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

The last image Keith had of him before his eyes shut and he began to focus on all the various pathways running inside of him was of Shiro leaning against the countertop, a glass of fox nip wine in his hand, and this smile as encouraging as the sun to spring’s first blooms. It’s the wine that Keith remembers at that precise moment. It tasted faintly of berries, though he couldn’t place one particular flavor on his tongue over another, and had the subtle sweetness of summer-ripened plums. He sees the way the liquid swirled in Shiro’s glass, coating the sides with a deep purple-black veneer. Over and over. . .

It’s like someone pulled the stopper from a drain. One minute, Keith feels like he is standing there, slowly wading through the darkness within, and then he’s moving, feet swept out from under him as the floor fractures then breaks open. Lips parts; a gasp escapes him. He’s sliding deeper and deeper, seeing nothing, feeling only the rush of memories and dreams slipping past him. Losing some part of himself in the process. He fights to open his eyes, but can’t. Or maybe they are open, and he is seeing still nothing. 

But he can hear Shiro’s voice, faint but calming, and there’s something pressing against his skin, gentle as the moon’s glow. And still, his heart hammers, and he wants to wake up, and he feels that there is something here that will devour him if he’s not careful in how he approaches it. But even if he wants to, he can’t stop this endless slide to the depths of everything he never knew he could be.

Bringing him nowhere. . .somewhere. . .everywhere. . .

It all ends with a flash of blue light and Keith suspended in midair. He gulps down a breath. The light consolidates, growing smaller and smaller before him, then smaller still until it’s no longer a sun rising before him, ready to burn him and everything he had ever hoped for away, but a flickering ball of flame no bigger than his palm.

He reaches out for it, hesitant. “You’re. . .mine, aren’t you?”

The flame dances away from his fingertips. Though it has the same bright blue hue to it that Shiro’s fire has, there’s another color rippling through it: an electric lavender. It’s not always present, but rather, runs across the ball’s surface at odd intervals. His lips pull tight. He reaches for it again.

“I came here, all this way for you!” he cries out as it evades him once more.

Whether it has the capacity to listen or not, Keith doesn’t know, but there’s something almost sentient about the fire. A will of its own. And standing here, so close to something that might help him understand himself a little better, only to have that very thing deny him. . .

“Please,” he whispers, voice strained with desperation. “You can help me, can’t you? I need. . .I need to know. . .”

The fire flickers, more purple than blue, as if considering its own nature, _Keith’s_ nature. When he reaches for it again, it doesn’t move. His fingers run through its center, a pleasant warmth seeping into his skin. He does it again; the flame shimmers in response, almost as if laughing. Keith finds himself smiling at it. When he moves for it once more, it’s with both hands coming up and around to cup the flame. It emits a soft azure glow against his palms, and it doesn’t burn. Something in him recognizes that it could, however. If he wanted it, this fire would raze a whole village to the ground.

In the span of an instant, in what felt like infinity, Keith sees it all - the scope of destruction, the saving graces of rescues, the mysterious lure of a dark wood lit up by blue flame.

“Hi, there.”

Nestled in his hands, the flame dims then bursts bright with light at the greeting.

“I’m glad to meet you too,” he laughs.

When he opens his eyes, Shiro is standing there before him, his hands curled lightly around Keith’s and there, dancing in the center of his palms, is the same flame he had found in the darkness. He’s smiling at Keith in a way that makes his heart ache with some indistinct yearning. Proud. Shiro looks proud of him, and somewhere in the midst of that, Keith can see that he’s impressed as well. 

“Even with the wine, some foxes don’t find their fire for weeks.”

Keith licks his lips, then drops his gaze to the flame. It continues to bob back and forth, up and down, all within the space contained between his hands. A beautiful foxfire blue. Preternatural and yet as soft as pre-dawn in its hue. He’s reminded of the images again that had flashed through his mind, of smoking ruins and fiery trails beckoning through the darkness. 

“So, you’re saying I’m a natural at this,” Keith replies. A smirk teases the corner of his mouth as he lifts his gaze to meet Shiro’s.

He’s greeted with a lopsided smile and amusement gleaming bright in gray eyes. “I didn’t go that far,” Shiro answers, biting back a laugh. “But, I do think you have potential. For this, and a lot of other things.”

Fingers touch to the back of Keith’s hand. Shiro takes a step closer and drops his gaze to the fire still burning bright. Keith hasn’t stopped looking at Shiro, at the way his mouth is still curved by that smile and how the blue light makes his eyes glow almost silver. Another touch ghosts along his knuckles. The flame wavers; a shiver cuts down his spine. Keith sucks in a short breath.

“If it goes away. . .” he starts.

Shiro finishes, “. . .you can call it back. Now that you know where it is.”

“I don’t think I know exactly.”

He’s afraid of that. Afraid that if he lets this one burn out, he’ll never find the fuel for another. To think he didn’t know he was living in darkness until this very moment, and now he could lose it all again because he just doesn’t know.

“Breathe out, Keith,” Shiro murmurs. “And tell it to go back to where it came from.”

Keith shakes his head, slow as a pendulum reluctant to keep time. Hands close in around his wrists, their touch gentle, warm, firm. As much as he wants to resist them, he can’t. Even as he knows they won’t hold him here. Shiro isn’t touching him to force anything from him. He’s. . .

“Do you trust me?” Shiro asks softly.

“Yes,” Keith breathes out. This man who had saved him, who brought him back to life - to the life he had never known but always had, and placed endless faith in him so much that he had given up parts of himself so that Keith would feel comfortable enough to find it for himself. . .all this time, Keith had insisted he could walk away at any moment. Like everything else in his life, this was transient, and he no more capable of holding onto it than the wind could keep the smell of smoke. Eventually, it would all fade. But day after day, he woke up in this home. Day after day, Shiro was down there in the kitchen, ears flicking back to the sound of Keith’s arrival, a smile ready on his lips. Day after day, they walked the garden at the back of Shiro’s house, or the town’s streets, or through its market. Day after day, Keith kept expecting to wake up from the dream only to realize the dream had found a life of its own and now existed all around him, without him, within him. 

“Let go,” Shiro murmurs again. The words echo against his ear. “And trust yourself to find it again.”

As Keith exhales, the flame sputters. He looks at Shiro, deep into those silver-gray eyes, and wills the fire to return to its source. Wherever that may be within him. After a few seconds, the kitchen goes dark again, only the moonlight spilling in from the window, filling up the sink. 

This time, it’s Shiro who licks his lips and seems to question where exactly he should be looking. His fingers tighten, near imperceptibly, then relax. He smiles again, smaller this time and without his usual confidence. Keith finds it charming. He finds that thought, however, a bit strange, and tries to tell himself it’s not his heart racing but his fears trying to find someplace to burrow and breed. Shiro releases Keith’s wrists only to drag his fingertips across the exposed planes of his palms. Slowly, like he’s trying to coax life from the forest floor.

“You can still feel it, can’t you?” he asks.

Keith can only nod his head.

Shiro’s smile grows a bit more confident. His fingers trace the lines of Keith’s own until they rest tip to tip. When they depart, they leave behind a small ball of fire over each finger, hovering just above Keith’s skin. And at that moment, he can feel it, all the faith Shiro has for him, all the potential he has stored up unrecognized within himself, and something else. Something unwilling to name itself, but warm in all the ways Keith thought home was supposed to be and could never find for himself. 

The flames die out, one by one, casting them in shadow once more.

“Then find it again, Keith.”

He doesn’t shut his eyes. But he can see that place, black as fresh ink, and he knows it to be the world in which all possibilities exist. The same place he can find the fire that belongs to him, his birthright. His lips move, but no words strike the air.

_Come._

Blue flame ignites over his palm, larger than before. Surprising him. He takes a step back. The flame flickers. He focuses on it, then on his heart, pounding out its triumph against his ribs. 

“I did it,” he murmurs, mesmerized by the sight. On the next breath, he’s searching for Shiro and finds him standing where he had left him, a smile over his lips and his eyes glimmering like those of all light-struck predators. His fox’s ears have returned, pricked in his direction, and his tail, white-tipped black, gives a small wag. “Shiro, I found it!”

The elation in his voice brings another emotion over him - mild embarrassment. But it’s Shiro’s words and that smirk, exposing a single canine, that puts the flush on his cheeks.

“You did. Good boy, Keith.”

It’s only then that Keith realizes it - the tail wagging in response.

*

“You said we were going northeast. . .”

Shiro hums out a sound of agreement at that, offering no more or less than a simple acknowledgment of a truth. That’s not what Keith had been looking for, but then again, how is he to have known what to expect? When they had arisen that morning, Shiro had merely said they were taking a trip. On the table, sitting beside a bowl of sliced persimmon and pear, was the letter Hunk had given him a week prior at the market. It retained its solid form, but whenever Keith had tried to touch it, his fingers had moved right through it.

“Is this because of that letter?”

Another hum, though this one is accompanied by a glance. If Keith had to guess, Shiro looks rather bemused by all the questions, but experience has told him something more is on Shiro’s mind. That look is the one he offered when he’s trying to maintain his composure while his mind insists on treading other paths. Realizing this sends Keith’s fox ears flattening against the top of his head. 

He’s gotten better at controlling them over the last week. The first few days had been. . .difficult, to say the least. They would pop into being whenever it suited them, the ears along with the tail. Sometimes one ear and the tail, sometimes just the tail. The worst had been when he had stepped fully human into the shower and emerged half-yōkai. He had felt the water in his ears all afternoon, and the tail took the better part of an hour to completely dry. With them present, however, Keith began to feel the air in the unearthly realm in a different manner. It buzzed with meaning, some ever-present intent as if the very world itself was a monster, with a beating heart and a will all its own. Depending on the district he was in, that meaning seemed to fluctuate. At Shiro’s home, it left him with an overwhelming feeling of comfort, the sort you wanted to nestle under like a down comforter on a snowy winter’s morning. In the market, it left him invigorated, his body thrumming, just skimming along the lines of action; the food court smelled more enticing; the merchants’ calls more cajoling. And the entertainment district. . .Keith hadn’t been there yet, but he could feel the lure of it, curling around his thoughts like the opening notes of some grand stage play, just waiting for its leading man.

Every time he thought of that place, though, he found himself thinking of Shiro. 

Which isn’t much different from now.

“Where are we exactly?”

After the morning meal, he had helped Shiro clean the kitchen. It was only after the last plate had been set to dry on the rack that Shiro had told him to go and get ready. They had an official request from the White Plum Palace. Well, Shiro had received the request. Keith merely got to tag along. 

“The Ibara Forest,” Shiro says distractedly. 

A forest of thorns. He has yet to see anything like one, no plant stuck head to toe with them, no flower, brilliant in color, just waiting to draw blood from any who dared try to pluck it. Just thick pine trees that loom above them and a network of pathways that cut through the forest, some as thin as a weasel and just as convoluted in its movements. They’re following one of the larger paths, more of a roadway consisting of forest floor pounded down flat with only the occasional rut along its route. Well traveled, and yet Shiro’s ears are pricked forward, his tail sweeping low. 

Keith hears the twittering of a sparrow from somewhere deeper in the woods. 

“Shiro?”

“Yes, Keith?”

“What are we doing here?”

Though he doesn’t stop moving, there’s a moment of hesitation in Shiro’s step. It puts him right back in line with Keith, allowing them to walk side-by-side. “This forest sits at the base of a mountain chain here, and where the two meet, a tribe of oni makes their home. I need to speak with one of them about a matter they brought to Allura’s attention.”

“Oni. . .as in. . .demons. . .ogres. . .things that like to eat people?” Keith asks, the term putting something bitter on his tongue.

“There are as many stories about them as there are about our own kind. While I do think exercising caution is good when approaching unknown situations, you should always keep your mind open, Keith. Not everything is as it appears to be.”

“Like you?”

That draws a look from Shiro, full of unhindered surprise. “What do you mean by that?”

Keith purses his lips together, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the path ahead of them. But his right ear flicks toward Shiro, a betrayal of attention. “I overheard the old kappa at the flower stall the other day. He says you have another form, but no one has seen it in decades. And I. . .”

He doesn’t continue. 

Ahead of them and to the left, several bushes rustle with movement. Shiro continues to walk forward several more steps, his nose to the wind, and then stops completely, a hand held out indicating that Keith should do the same. Keith takes a deep breath. He smells the pine, along with its sticky sap, the pungent musk of decaying leaves, and something deeper than that, the very earth itself, damp and rich with life. It strikes him again that he doesn’t smell anything from Shiro himself.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

A voice. Delicate, feminine, but with hints of determination. The bushes rustle again. Several small sparrows shoot out, jet black and frantic in their movements. They sweep around Shiro and Keith, twittering anxiously before darting into the dark of the forest once more. 

“Shay?” Shiro asks, cautious.

After a moment, a figure emerges from the side of the path. Beneath the moonlight, Keith can see that she’s large, much larger even than Shiro, with skin colored a bluish-gray and two small horns protruding from her forehead. Her eyes glitter like two yellow diamonds, lit by some supernatural flame within. When she smiles at them, faint and almost apologetic, her canines are exposed. Those are large too, enough to rival any big cat. 

She nods at them both. “I know you are here because Lady Allura received my message, but it is no longer safe. Not even when I sent that was it safe, but now. . .things are changing, Shiro.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Come. We should not talk out here. I cannot take you to our village, but there is a series of caverns nearby. We should be safe there.”

Shiro accepts with a bow of his head and a glance down at Keith. Unease fills Keith’s gut over it all, despite the reassurance he had seen in Shiro’s gaze. Maybe it’s the way Shiro’s ears flick forward and back, restlessly searching the woods for any unusual sound. Or how the muscles cord tightly in his forearms. But maybe it’s just the eeriness of the forest itself, full of undying trees and yet carrying the scent of decay all throughout it. Back in the earthly realm, Keith wouldn’t have thought twice about such a scent, as natural as any to the woods. But here. . .

For all her size, Shay moves through the forest as soundlessly as Shiro does. The path they’re currently on seems to accommodate her body, and after a moment, noting the bend of the branches, some broken, some naturally turning aside, Keith realizes she or others like her had carved this trail out for themselves. He also notes the smell of damp dirt intensifies around her. Something fresh and renewing, and yet constantly reminding him of the cycle of life. 

Eat. Be eaten. And in the end, all return to the earth. 

Eventually, the path narrows and splits in several directions. Shay leads them along the westernmost path, pushing tree branches and bushes aside in turn. Keith falls in behind Shiro, mostly because he makes a convenient bulldozer through the forest. No unexpected branches to thwack him in the face when someone much larger is cutting the way forward for you. As if reading his thoughts, Shiro’s tail starts to wag, and Keith catches the hint of a smile just barely curving his lips. He resists the urge to smack him, and instead, focuses on the sheer wall of stone rising from the ground before them. No subtle slope to act as a prelude. Almost as though someone had split a mountain clean in half. There are no juts in the rock for handholds, no cracks marring itself surface. Just clean rockface, towering above the woods and throwing the world at its base into blacker-than-night shadows, the perfect place to lay a trap. 

“Over here,” Shay calls out quietly. 

After a moment, his eyes adjust to the sudden lack of moonlight, allowing him to spot the outline of the oni over to their right. Shiro is already moving toward her, his nose tipped to the air once more. Keith follows after taking a deep breath for himself. 

She’s standing at the entrance of a cave, no bigger than Shiro. With a beckoning flick of her fingers, she bends and disappears inside. Shiro doesn’t hesitate, trailing in her wake, but Keith pauses just outside, unnerved by the call of the sparrows rising up once more from the forest depths. But when he looks around, he sees nothing, not even with his fox’s sight, only a sea of trees, silent in its watch. He disappears into the cave with one final glance to the forest. 

It’s a narrow fit, even for him, and how the other two managed to make it through without a plethora of scrapes and bruises or tears in their clothing, Keith doesn’t know. The walls are damp though, cool to the touch, and he can hear the faint trickling of water stemming from deeper within the cave. When he emerges, the breath he had been unknowingly holding releases in a rush of surprise. All around them, green light ricochets off of crystals hanging from the ceiling, each amplifying the other, until the whole room is lit with an emerald glow. It makes the green of Shay’s dress seem all the more vibrant, and after a moment of taking it all in, Keith realizes she’s clothed in moss.

Not dead animal skins like the stories always told. 

He thinks the skins might have been more comfortable, but Shay seems unaware of this notion. 

Keith moves deeper into the cave, his eyes roving over the crystals above. They protrude from the rock itself, offsetting the deep gray color with a green so alive Keith swears the very source of life stems from them. As if someone took the heart and soul of the planet and decided this was the place it would beat for all the world. 

“Where is your brother? I thought we were to meet with you both?” Shiro asks. A direct question, not accusatory, but hardened by suspicion. 

Shay smiles at them both, that same tragedy-heavy smile from before. “Taken like so many of the others.”

Shiro starts at that, his eyes widening. “Who?”

The single word is more like a ghost, haunted by some past Shiro refuses to name. But Keith can feel it there, hanging in the air among them. With one look at Shay, he knows she sees it too.

“The Galra clan. They’ve been coming to the villages on the outskirts. Some go willingly, bought by their words, but others they. . .enchant.”

“Why would they do that?” Keith blurts out, his curiosity - and some odd sense of anger - getting the better of him. “I thought everything was in balance here. . .I thought we were coming here for some rogue artifact Allura wanted.”

Water drips from the crystals above. As one droplet lands on the tip of his nose, Keith wipes it away furiously. His ears flatten, the memory of the shower still fresh in his mind. Shay looks around the cavern, helpless, but something else sparks bright in her eyes. It deepens the color of them, turning them marigold yellow. Against the dark green of her dress, it’s as though hope itself found a way to bloom. 

Keith nearly regrets the anger setting fire to his veins. 

Something quickens Shay’s movements, her arms waving before her as she explains about the disappearances, the Galra's promises of a return to _better days_. All of it seems to suggest that there simply is no time, no time. . .She starts to move toward the center of the cave. There’s a path, threading deeper into the mountain, where water flows in a thin line until the darkness consumes it. She stops near a cluster of crystals and reaches up into the center of them. 

“They were searching our village for this,” she explains as she takes hold of something and carefully begins to draw it down. “My brother returned with it one day. He said a tengu had dropped it. One of the ones cloaked in gold.”

“Hunk?” 

Shay shakes her head at Shiro. “No, one of the other heavenly ones. It was attacked in the air. I do not know what became of it. My brother retrieved this. We were going to return it to Lady Allura, but then the Galra came. One of them played a strange song. I could not recognize the notes, only that they made me feel ill. My brother and the others were affected worse. It awoke the old blood in them. . .It was my grandmother who told me to hide this. She had me send the letter to Lady Allura.”

Shiro’s jaw has set, and something dark has possessed his gaze. It’s different from the fear Keith had seen briefly before, at the mention of the Galra. More determination born from understanding the true horror of potential outcomes. Keith doesn’t know if he is looking into the future or standing knee-deep in his past, but either way, there’s a force radiating from Shiro that calls out to something deeper in himself. Resonating. Unsettling. 

“And they wanted this specifically?” he questions, sharp and to-the-point. 

As Shay nods, she holds out her palm and uncurls her fingers from around the object within, a single perfectly round red jewel. The longer he stares at it though, the more Keith comes to realize it’s not merely red, but like his own kimono, seems to shift color with every exhale. From the palest pre-dawn yellow to the brightest crimson of a dying sun. 

“They did not say what for, but only that it had been lost and belonged rightfully to them.”

Shiro’s lips pull to a tight, mirthless line. 

“Please, Shiro. Deliver this to Lady Allura and tell her of what is happening here in the fringe lands. I do not know if the spell put over the others will lift without her aid.”

The plea works another kind of magic over Shiro’s expression, softening the lines of his face, pulling his lips into the gentle curve of a smile. In his eyes, a darkness still swims, one that fascinates and terrifies Keith in equal measures. Part of him wants to know what could cause a man like Shiro to harbor such things within him. Another part of him wonders what right he has to even think he could ask such a thing. 

Silence wins out over him. Keith simply watches as Shiro takes the small jewel and deposits it into a black silk bag. As he draws the purse strings shut, he bows his head toward Shay. “I promise you I’ll do what I can for you and your village, but if anything changes, you have to let us know.”

“I will try,” she answers. “Now go, before they realize I have been gone for longer than one should.”

When they exit the cave, the world seems all the darker to Keith. There had been something almost maternal about the glow emanating from the crystals, a place to heal or simply come together. Even his agitation had seemed out of place there, and he wondered if Shiro had felt the same. Looking at him now, Keith couldn’t have guessed if he did. His features are hardlined once more, his gaze set firmly on the forest before them. Even his shoulders have pulled themselves back, making Shiro appear taller, more dangerous. 

A worthy opponent. 

Keith wants to ask who Shiro could ever think of fighting (and the idea of Shiro in battle is so foreign to him some part of him immediately rejects the very notion), but the answer reveals itself not even half a breath later.

“To think, the gods’ messenger has strayed into these woods. What brings you here, I wonder. . .”

It’s not so much the words that reverberate through him but the voice itself. Deep, foreboding. Full of promised violence and the delight that could be had in it. If Fear itself had means to speak, Keith believes this is how it would sound. He takes a step forward, lining himself up with Shiro, his head lowered.

“And he brought his pup. How fortunate for me, wouldn’t you say, Shiro?”

“Step back.”

The command isn’t issued at the speaker but at Keith. He balks at it, fury snarling through his words as he turns to Shiro. “I don’t know what this is, but I can help you!”

“Keith, this is not the time nor the place for this. Now, step back.”

He doesn’t step back. Shay pulls him back, and Keith finds it impossible to escape her grip, as solid as stone over his shoulder. There’s just enough distance between them that should Shiro need it, Keith could wrench himself free and be there at his side in seconds. 

“You know you cannot save him.”

That voice again, with all its violence, all its amusement. 

“I shouldn’t have to. Care to tell me why you’re here, Sendak? I’m certain the Galra had their borders well defined, and these woods are under the care of the oni tribe. What does a nekomata like yourself need from here that he could not get from the markets?”

Shiro holds his ground. His fox ears are pricked forward, his tail held out behind him, like a flag waiting to signal the attack. Every ounce of him trained on the edge of the forest. For a brief second, Keith thinks he can see movement there, a shadow pulling apart from the shadows. No more than a ripple in a dark ocean. Laughter fills the air around them, slow and sonorous, like time is all it has in the world and it will wait until it has sunk into the fiber of every living being present. 

The shadows dance again, only this time, a figure emerges from them. Larger than Shiro. Larger than Shay. Keith feels absolutely dwarfed by the creature. Its paw alone could crush him, and something innate within him cowers at the sight. The fox. Not the supernatural one, the one Shiro had taught him how to find. The other fox, the earthly realm one. The human one. It tells him that this beast is nothing of the world he knew, and if he set foot there, he would devastate it. 

Sendak, as Shiro had called him, is authority itself. As Authority might imagine itself to be in this world. Large, heavily muscled, with thick lavender fur and piercing yellow eyes. His features are all too feline, from the triangular ears atop his head (no signs of human ones at all), to the feral canine-exposing grin, to the split tails whipping back and forth behind him. Two tails in total, from what Keith can see. His paws have a more human appearance to them, long, tapering fingers, with curved nails on each end. He’s dressed like the warriors of old, or at least that’s how Keith remembers them depicted in that last video game he had played, with a short kimono top of light purple and a dark violet hakama layered over it. Keith is almost disappointed to note he carries no sword. 

But weapons are a rare thing in this world. Unnecessary, maybe, when the majority of its occupants are weaponized themselves. 

“The oni tribe has recovered something that belongs to us. I would see it back in its rightful hands,” Sendak replies. 

“There is nothing here that belongs to you,” Shiro cuts back. Defiance has him standing rigidly before the path Sendak had appeared on, not within striking distance, but still a roadblock. “I suggest you turn back and report as much to your elders.”

A low rumble of sound spills from Sendak. Not quite a purr, not fully a laugh, but something in between. All of it making no effort to shield the derision hidden within its notes. 

“You could come back with me. Tell them yourself or. . .” The corner of Sendak’s mouth curls, thin and cruel, as he takes a step closer to Shiro. “. . .are you too broken at this point?”

Silence seals Shiro’s lips. But Keith can see the tremble that works its way over his body, and though he gives no signs of fear, he feels something of it in that subtle betrayal. For reasons he cannot explain, for ones he doesn’t want to explore, he finds himself snarling in Sendak’s direction. But Shay’s hand is as unmovable as Time’s own heart. And just as the hours and days would not weep for them, Keith knows that Sendak would regret nothing of slaughtering them all here and now. 

“Last warning, Sendak. Return to your clan and abide by the laws set forth after the end of the Night Parade.” 

“I’d rather not.”

The words are dropped with all the harshness spawned by self-righteous rebellion, the last syllable barely escaping before Sendak launches himself at Shiro. Shay pulls Keith back to the mountain, one hand still firmly locked on his shoulder, the other pressed flat against the rock itself. She’s murmuring something, but Keith can’t make out the words. A chant or a spell or maybe just a prayer. It doesn’t matter either way, because Shiro. . .has changed. Keith can’t take his eyes from the sight, of the fox larger than any wolf Keith has known - yōkai or earthly - with fur as black as his deepest dreams and eight tails undulating behind it. There’s a ninth one, or so Keith thinks, but it’s indistinct, a hazy shadow that flickers in and out amongst the others until it seems more apparition itself than physical potential. 

Erected before Shiro, a barrier stands nearly as tall as the mountain itself. Moonlight cascades down its surface, lending it a silver glow that seems to shiver with each strike made against it. Sendak drives his fists remorselessly into it, grinning as all battle-frenzied warriors do when their blood runs hotter than their thoughts. With every hit against the barrier, a crack appears. With every breath Shiro takes, it mends itself.

But Keith can see it - the other consequence. Shiro is losing ground. Bit by bit, the earth gives way beneath him. His chest heaves with effort, then all at once the barrier dissolves, and Shiro shoots forward, diving low at the last second. Blue fire swirls around Sendak’s feet, climbing up in a column around his leg. When he jumps back, the fire follows, shooting up out of the ground in an attempt to snare his feet. 

Laughter floods the air once more. Sendak slips back into the shadows of the forest, though Keith can still see him, the glow of his eyes unnerving. It doesn’t have the shine to it that comes naturally to all nocturnally active animals. Simply glows and glows, an acid yellow burning through the night. 

“You were a fool to bring him here, Shiro.” 

What happens next Keith doesn’t know. He remembers those words and the purple flame that hung in the air before Sendak’s form. He watched as it changed direction, from Shiro to himself. And after that. . .Shiro on the ground before him, energy crackling around him, sharp as the sound of breaking tends to be. All around his body, a net of black and violet lightning, each seeming to fight for dominance over the other. Sendak makes for another charge. Shay tightens her grip. 

With the sweep of a single tail, a wall of blue fire erupts from the ground. Soundless, but its heat palpable even from where Keith stands. The growl Sendak lets loose is full of bitter rage. However, rather than retreat, he simply stalks the perimeter of it. A caged tiger who has already seen the way out and now just bides its time. Shiro pushes himself up onto his forelimbs, chest rising and falling rapidly with the effort. 

And then the world goes dark. 

The fire is gone. Shiro’s body flickers between its various forms - from nine-tailed deity to human to forest fox and finally to yōkai. His fingers dig into the earth, his fox ears flat against his head, and his gaze relentlessly trained on Sendak. He has stopped his roving, having turned to face them, with a grin, smug in the way that the murderous variety of self-satisfied can sometimes make itself known. What Keith takes from it all is that Sendak isn’t interested in merely ending them, but in making examples of all that they stand for. . .and what precisely those notions are, Keith still doesn’t fully understand. But he knows Shiro is caught up in something bigger than he had imagined when they first set out this morning, and that by default, he has become enmeshed in it as well. 

“Keith! Shiro! Get in!” 

The voice is familiar but out of place. Before he can ascertain where it had come from, Shay hauls him off his feet and throws him at the rock wall behind her. He tumbles through it and lands with an unimpressive thud in one of the rice fields on the outskirts of the Henge District. Seconds later, Shiro comes flying through, his body skidding through the mud and water only to come to an unmoving halt. 

“Shiro!”

The name leaves his lips in a broken cry, but the only answer Keith hears is the fading call of a sparrow.


	4. Chapter 4

He’s still breathing. That’s the first thing Keith detects as he falls to his knees at Shiro’s side, that fact settling, in part, the panic that had started to riot in his chest. All of it had made it rather difficult to breathe, for gods knew how many seconds as if Panic was this thing plucking out bits of his lungs and hurling them at his ribcage in its rage. But as each fact lays itself bare (Shiro is breathing, and the color keeps to his cheeks, and there’s no longer anything sparking about his figure like two dragons battling for aerial dominance), Keith finds the dissonance in his own head quieting. Which leaves him open to other facts that need to be laid out and dissected down to be better understood.

Coran. 

The voice had been unmistakably his, but it’s not a man that Keith finds standing before him. Rather, it’s a dog. . .of sorts. Large as a lion, with a lion’s mane, thick, orange curls wreathing its neck, but having the bushy tail of a Samoyed instead, in the same bright orange hue. The rest of its coat is a sleek steel gray, its paws bigger than Keith’s head with nails that glint silver in the moonlight. When it fixes his gaze on him, Keith is immediately reminded of blue skies and endless dreams. They have a vivid clarity to them, as though no sin goes unseen, no hope unnoticed. All of it offset by a wide mouth, its canine teeth, long and sharp and protruding from its jaw even when fully closed.

A beast that could shred your reality just as easily as it shielded you from it. 

“Oh, he seems all right. Was a bit worried there for a moment,” Coran says. 

Or Keith thinks he says it. More like the words echo in his head. He blinks up at the monstrosity, trying to align the image of the man (tall, lanky, same orange hair only with a lot less volume - most seemed pumped up into his mustache honestly) and this creature now sniffing about Shiro. 

“Coran? You. . .have a horn on your head?”

It seems stupid to ask. 

It also seems stupid not to ask.

The lion-dog looks up at him, head tilted to the right. The horn in question sits center on his forehead: short, pointed, lacquered black. “Did you forget my name or something, Keith? Sendak didn’t rattle you up too much, did he?”

Sendak. The nekomata. That’s what Shiro had called him. Keith shakes his head, his memories fighting for center stage and in the process, doing nothing more than tripping over themselves until they are nothing more than a tangle of visions and feelings and half pieced together facts. In other words, a senseless mess. 

“He’s fine, Coran. Give him a moment.”

Those words put calm into the air, like someone, having seen the dark blank canvas of night decided to place the stars there, one by one, to make it all seem a little less imposing. A little less lonely.

“Allura. . .Shiro. . .he’s . . .what’s wrong with him?” Keith stammers, uncertain where the concern had welled up from but fearing it innately. He thinks he knows, but it’s not a place he wants to revisit, even if it would mean being able to put a stopper over the hole that concern is flowing now from. Six weeks is hardly any time to really know someone. That’s barely two months.

And yet in two months, his life had drastically changed. From left-for-dead in some farmer’s trap (maybe only to be set free with wounds that might have done him in regardless, or sent off to be skinned, or maybe Fortune might have smiled and some kind soul would have whisked him off to a veterinarian only for his secret to be discovered. . .) to reclaiming what he truly is, bit by bit, with Shiro’s help, and now to this. . .

“He’s going to be fine,” Allura tells him gently. Her fingertips alight upon his shoulder, light as dawn’s first dream, and she smiles. Not at him, but at Shiro. There’s a touch of sadness to the curve of her lips, one Keith doesn’t quite understand but feels nonetheless. She’s dressed as before, the same silvery gown flowing about her figure. Her feet still don’t touch the ground; each step settles over the muck of the field rather than in it. The whole of the unearthly realm seems incapable of staining her with its presence. 

Keith wants to believe those words, part of him can’t even fight against them. He turns his gaze back to Shiro, who continues to lay there, unmoving aside from the rise and fall of his chest. Each breath a painful effort, though Shiro’s face gives nothing away. It’s in the effort it seems to take, shallow and, at times, shuddering inhales and exhales, the only signs of life offered by Shiro at that moment. Allura, after giving him a consoling pat, moves to where Shiro lays and kneels down beside him. Lips moving, words inaudible, she runs her fingers across his forehead in a series of lines, which Keith imagines to be some ancient sutra-sacred script. With no more than a sigh, Shiro’s body shifts back to his fox form. The one that belongs to the forest and not to this realm. Single tail, no larger than a German Shepherd. Still too big for your average fox.

“Come,” Allura says. “We’ve got to get him back to his house. He needs to recover in the garden.”

“What’s in the garden?” asks Keith.

He knows the garden. The one out back. Surrounded by tall stone walls with tiled eaves that wrapped around the entire perimeter of the house. There's a wooden gate in the back that led into it, with a pathway made of stones of varying sizes set equidistance apart that brought you to the back door of the house itself. Keith liked sitting out on the small verandah after dinner. 

As for the flora and fauna, he couldn’t name any of them. While many of the flowers bore similar designs to those he recognized in the human world, they contained elements of the unearthly that told him nothing grown here would survive elsewhere. Roses that burned like embers, their petals flaking off like ash, their cores beating like a molten heart just waiting to erupt into flame again. Bluebells that weren’t blue but hung like slivers cut from the moon, glowing silver in the never-ending night. Moss carpeting that seemed to move daily, arranging itself into intricate patterns, as though constantly reminding that perfection could never be found only pursued. And lilies. These had light purple bases, turning lighter and lighter until the tips of their petals burned white, each pulsing with a faint light. A firefly’s song. 

“Something that will hasten his recovery,” Allura replies. She nods towards Shiro, indicating that he is to be picked up.

Keith looks at her, then Shiro, then Coran. The lion-dog tips his head towards Shiro as well. “Hop to it, young fox! The day’s wasting and so is Shiro. . .”

His eyes widen at that. Wasting. As in going away. Never to return. Wasted time. Wasted efforts. Wasted life. As his lips part, Allura puts her hand up in the air, palm facing him. 

“Let’s get him home. Then we will talk.”

They walk back in silence. Keith had been the one to lift Shiro, but the prospect of carrying him across the distance to his home was a daunting one, already burdened with the weight of impending grief and all the unknown carried by unanswered questions. And the questions simply kept piling up, making mountains of shadow in the back of his mind. Who exactly is Sendak? And the Galra? Keith had come to know them as another clan that occupied the unearthly realm. There were a handful of them actually. The tengu, for one. And the kitsune - though Shiro always spoke of them in the past tense, and he had yet to meet another of their kind. Others, too - those who called the water home, the shape-shifters, the pranksters, the mountain guardians, the souls of earthly realm beings converted into something supernatural by any number of things - old age, curses, rage, sorrow, untimely and horrific ends. Keith had come to learn that the unearthly realm isn’t just home to the ghosts and goblins of old tales, but to the beings that couldn’t find their way to the halls of death. Those beings that became so lost their very natures twisted into something unnatural. Some of them settled, eventually, in this world and lived out their lives as any of the others here did. They came to terms, even if they couldn’t move on.

Some of them still struggled with themselves, as if caught between three lives: the one they had lived, the one they now had, and the one they should have had in the afterlife.

Those were the dangerous ones. The unpredictable ones. Keith would rather face the ancient creatures of the forest, like that massive bear in the market, than one of the lost. 

Keith carried him though, arms slid beneath his body, Shiro’s head draped over one, his tail over the other. He still breathed in and out steadily, a shudder racking his body every so often. The evening air held the hints of deeper fall to it, chillier but still light enough for early September or thereabouts. It’s an odd thing to become adjusted to time - morning, afternoon, evening, night - when the only thing ever hanging in the sky is the moon, but Keith had. He related it more to his sleep cycles and, on the days he visited the market, which stalls were open when. The mornings saw the food stalls welcoming patrons first, in particular, those selling fish freshly caught (he didn’t know where they were from exactly, but if Hunk had given any indication, it was a variety of places from both the unearthly and earthly realms). The last to open were always those selling liquor and the various oddities collected from the human world. A few only opened at night, well after most of the market had closed. These laid out strange items: old daggers coated in rust, jewels with the colors drained from them, gears with nothing to drive them forward, battered songbird cages. The merchants didn’t sell these items but rather traded favors for them, and not to just anyone. Most of the objects Keith had seen caused something inside of him to tremor, like a winter’s gust had just pelted his soul. Curiosity couldn’t even get him to reach out and run his fingers along them, though a small blade had nearly tempted him once. It was Shiro who had saved him from its pull.

_Bleed from it or have it bleed for you, and the curse that lives in that dagger becomes your own. They always tell you to be careful what you wish for, right? Well, that dagger is the living embodiment of that._

By the time they reach Shiro’s house, Keith guesses about thirty minutes have passed. No one had spoken, though not for lack of conversation topics. However, every time he had glanced over at Allura, something about the look on her face had convinced him it was better not to ask. Not out here. Not at that time. In fact, it isn’t until they’re fully inside the backyard, gate closed and locked, that he’s even aware of Allura breathing.

“Over here!” Coran calls out. He had darted ahead through the gate, his form shrinking down to the size of a Rottweiler and looking more like the komainu statues positioned outside of shrines. Keith adjusts his hold on Shiro, body rolling back towards his elbows and chest, and allows his gaze to follow Coran’s path to where he now sits. Allura moves in front of him and sweeps aside several sakaki branches to reveal a small clearing, nestled between the trees and their white flowers, which had bloomed in full at her touch. The roses, glowing faint red, line the bottom perimeter of the bed, for that’s what the area looks like. A resting place. Well used. The dirt has a smooth appearance to it as if pressed flat over the years like a well-trod path, and the plants all seem to understand this, as no green has dared try to overtake the place. 

“Set him here,” she says, gesturing for Keith to do exactly that. 

He takes care to put Shiro down as gently as possible, a hand slipping beneath his head to cradle it as the rest of his body fills the spot. Perfectly, Keith can’t help but note. It’s a place carved out for Shiro’s fox form, and he also can’t help but wonder how many times he had slept here, how long it had taken to convince the garden not to infringe upon this bed. And he wonders what it takes to make the world bow its head to you, not due to the bending and breaking of wills but from a silent, solemn understanding of a need. Voiceless but obvious. 

The sort of need humans all too often ignore, but the natural world seems to know implicitly. In the same way a child knows to take your hand, or a dog to rest its head in your lap when your heart weighs far too heavy for your chest. 

Shiro still doesn’t move, but the shudders stop tormenting his body and his breathing grows lighter with every passing second. 

“Now.” Allura sits back on her heels, her arms wrapped around her knees, making her look small and impossibly fragile. Like she’s trying to shield herself from the inevitable, even as she’s staring it down. “You have questions.”

Coran exhales heavily and takes a seat across from her, on the opposite side of Shiro. As for his part, Keith remains kneeling at the edge of the dirt bed, his eyes roaming Shiro’s form like he might pluck the answers from his fur instead of Allura’s mind. 

He licks his lips, tries to sort the thoughts in his head, and finally settles for silencing the loudest one. “Sendak. Shiro said he was a nekomata - that’s like some demon cat, right? But he also made it seem like he was Galra.”

“The Galra are nekomata. And bakeneko. They are a clan of cat demons, brought together during the Warring Period by a nekomata named Zarkon, who fancied himself an emperor of cats. So, yes, Sendak is both of those things.”

“Is there a difference among them then? If this emperor guy and Sendak are nekomata. . .”

Allura nods slowly. “The bakeneko aren’t like the nekomata, though they all stem from the same things: cats. Zarkon sought to make them more alike, however. More so in how they moved, how they thought. He wanted to bring order to this realm, and to do that, he started with his own kind. They were not always like Sendak, though he is perhaps the greatest product of what the Galra clan eventually came to be.”

“And that is?” Keith prods after Allura stops. 

A frown twists her lips, though even that looks pretty, he has to admit. Maybe gods and goddesses are simply like that, like ugliness has an aversion to their very nature, and thus left them stunning and gorgeous even in the worst of their moments. Even when harried by the ugliest of thoughts. She heaves out a great sigh and reaches out to pet Shiro’s tail, the white tip of it.

“Bakeneko tend to be playful if not cunning creatures. They like to fancy themselves human, walk, talk, live like humans. For most, it was more of a game. The minute they tired of it or some priestess or onmyoji figured them out, they ran right back here. Nekomata on the other hand are. . .different.” She pauses there as if the very word _nekomata_ stung her tongue. “They’re old creatures. Former cats, whether your typical house cat or a tiger, that outlived its earthly lives. They do have nine, you know. . .and with each life lived, their supernatural abilities grow. But at some point, in one of those lives, something terrible happened. Maybe they were drowned too young to know a full life, or were sacrificed for some ritual, or they witnessed a beloved owner’s death. Something that taints their soul and their memories. In their last life, their tails split, and they become fully of this world.”

“Zarkon is one of those?”

“Was one of them,” Allura corrects him. “His son, Lotor, killed him some time ago.”

Keith blinks, shock sending an avalanche down over his thoughts. “What? Why?!”

To destroy the family you have. . .Keith can’t fathom it. But maybe that’s nothing more than the fanciful dream of someone who has never had a family to call his own. One day, it’s bound to fall into disillusionment. 

The smile that takes Allura’s lips is melancholy reborn. Her fingers keep moving over Shiro’s fur, leaving little stars sparkling in their wake. It makes the white seem all the brighter. 

“Zarkon brought together those like him and formed the Galra clan. They were something of the thing back then. Clans, families. . .not so much now, but at one time in history, it was all about bringing things together and creating something cohesive out of such units, and naturally as different clans arose, with their different principles and ideas of entitlement, they came into conflict with others. He began to believe that, with all the chaos in the human world, it would be better if it all came under one rule. His rule. He started here, in this yōkai realm. And naturally, that put things a bit out of order.”

“All things in balance,” Keith murmured. Shiro was fond of saying that. 

Allura nods. “War broke out here. It broke out in the human realm too. Eventually, even the gods were brought into it as humans beseeched one deity or another to aid them. Some were granted holy items. Others received boons - favorable battle settings, celestial steeds, blessed weapons. One such goddess, however, looked at the Galra and thought, perhaps, Zarkon had something right. To bring the worlds into balance by harmonizing the energies of both worlds. Dark and light, fear and hope. She thought that if both understood the other better, for it was so many of human evils and fears that gave energy and brought life to this realm, there might be no more need for war. But so little was known about this realm and how one might go about achieving such a thing. So, she chose her side. “

“What happened then?”

The question comes out shaking, like a newborn calf trying to find its legs. Keith doesn’t know if he wants to find out, something in him tugging incessantly at his heart, telling it to turn away, but he knows this is the only way forward. A chance at surviving whatever it is that has Shiro, and now has him.

“The humans kept waging their wars. But here? The Galra became powerful with her aid. They began absorbing the other clans, taking over territories and towns. It seemed as though things would be okay. The Galra weren’t cruel about it, though they fought as any others would in battle. They were quick to bring in these other clans and encouraged the intermixing of various yōkai, which resulted in hybrids and new yōkai classes altogether. We. . .should have been paying more attention.”

Lament cuts through Allura’s words there. The frown returns and something shimmers along her lashes though nothing falls. Tears that glimmer behind her eyes but cannot find their form. 

“Battle brings about strange things in men, yōkai, and gods alike. Worse so for your kind, for the ones who have suffered in their creation. The goddess became obsessed with that. The pain, and what it did, and in trying to control it. Nothing we said could deter her, and she kept pursuing the darkness. Frankly speaking, the things she did were more like scientific experiments of the most abhorrent nature. And what fascinated her the most were those of you who could straddle the boundaries of all three worlds.”

“Like Shiro?”

“Yes, like Shiro. And the rest of his kind. When we realized what she was doing, we gave her an ultimatum - return to the celestial realm and give up any rights to aiding any other creatures of any other realm. Live quietly in the heavens, a prisoner but a god fully recognized still. Or be banished forever, with all heavenly rights stripped from her being.”

Keith doesn’t need to ask to know what had been the result of that. He could hear it in Allura’s words, in all the sadness that weighed them down like rocks anchored to each syllable, pulling them into the dark depths of grief. Clearing his throat quietly, he reaches out and drags his index finger down along Shiro’s forelimb. 

“Most of your kind disappeared after that. Those that survived. . .” She shakes her head. “That was after the first war here. The yōkai with celestial ties - the kitsune, tengu, tanuki, even the dragons - were able to halt their advances, but not without great losses. To both sides. And even with the restrictions we put into place and the flourishing of the realm once more, the Galra still tried to rise up. But in the times of quiet, I believe worse things were happening. The celestial messengers would go missing, most of the kitsune are still unaccounted for and I believe lost to us. . .Even Shiro. . .”

Allura’s mouth pulls to a tight line there. As if the words themselves had melded them shut, like wax sealing closed the contents of some clandestine document. 

Infuriating. That’s what it is, this feeling without claws to grip or legs to kick, but sitting there screaming out its existence at the very center of him. When Allura goes silent, all Keith can hear is that frustrated rage filling up his mind with its cries. A whole world lost to him, just when he thinks he had found it, something just like himself, unlike anything in the human world, only to hear that it hasn’t existed for a long time. And here, Shiro lays, breathing but unmoving, as though his soul has sunk into a deep slumber and Keith with no means of rousing it. Shiro, the last connection he has to himself. Shiro, the one who had found him and brought him home. 

Six weeks is not a long time to know someone, but it’s more than enough time to realize how much has been missing from your life. 

“What happened to Shiro?” Keith manages to get the question out, hating how raw his voice sounds.

“I don’t know.” 

There’s a broken honesty to that confession, and it makes Keith flinch beneath it.

“He doesn’t talk much of that time,” Allura continues, quietly. Hesitantly. Like it’s not her story to tell, and maybe it isn’t. “He says he still has memories missing of that time, but when he came back to us, he had lost something vital.”

It flashes before him then, the other form Shiro had taken. The would-be nine-tailed fox. Keith swallows and runs his finger along the paw pads of Shiro’s foot. They’re rough, calloused in a way that suggests miles have been run over terrain unkind, through all sorts of weather. Just like his own. 

“Shiro. . .he had another form. One I hadn’t seen from him yet. But one of his tails. . .it was like one of them was just a shadow or. . .a figment of my imagination. I didn’t know if it was really there or if I was seeing things.”

He can hear the confusion weaving around his words, leaving open all the ways he’s been trying to make sense of the last few hours. He feels it still, moving around his mind like a restless serpent, finding all places too hot or too cold for it to calmly settle. 

Allura doesn’t answer. Instead, Coran clears his throat, the sound ringing inside of Keith’s head, before he finally speaks. “Shiro is, or was, a nine-tailed fox. A true kitsune. You know of them, don’t you?”

Keith bobs his head. “Yeah. From stories and video games at least.”

“Well, Shiro is one of them. He still is really, but the Galra took part of his soul orb. That thing is vital to a kitsune, you know. Without one, you all would be nothing more than feral foxes. A true menace on the world! That orb keeps you whole. It’s not just what gives you power, it’s what keeps your heart intact.” Coran shifts his weight, front paws toe-tapping against the earth, before he settles again. “Poor Shiro here has been going on without the entirety of his soul orb for centuries now. It’s a wonder he’s even still here, but he always was one of the good ones.”

Keith sees it all too vividly in his head, the way Shiro had faltered, slipping from one form to the next like a television gone rogue, flipping from channel to channel without any means to stop itself. And whatever Sendak had done to cause it, all that energy crackling around his body, it’s gone now, with no signs of reappearing. But Shiro looks no closer to waking up either. 

“Is he dying?” The words spill out of him, no more capable of being held back than blood from a knife wound to the gut. 

“No, Keith,” Allura says, sympathy softening her words. Or maybe pity. He doesn’t know, but there’s something beautiful to it nonetheless that he wants to hate but simply can’t. “But he’s in danger of losing himself.”

“What can I do to help him?”

Desperation seeps into his voice. For weeks, Shiro had allowed him to stay in his home, had given him his own room, taken him out around the town and the surrounding areas, teaching him every step of the way. About his history, about this world, about the connections between it and the others, but mostly, about himself. In the span of a month, Keith had come to trust more of himself than he had in all his years as a human being. Maybe because he had been afraid of that - trusting. As if in doing so, he had to admit there were parts of him he still did not know. Perhaps was even afraid to know. Because maybe, if he admitted to those things, then someone out there in the human realm would come to know them too, and that would be the point where any relationship he had formed would snap. Like a hollowed-out bone. And how does one heal from that sort of breaking?

Even when he failed to awaken to himself, that yōkai side still buried deep within, Shiro didn’t walk away from him. Never once called him a failure. Never lost his temper. He had been patience personified, gentle when needed, firm when Keith balked. And when old fears began to loom, ominous as an impending storm, he stood beside him. In all his life, Keith had never known anyone like Shiro.

Maybe he hadn’t opened himself up enough, for surely there were humans just as kind and compassionate. But could they have understood?

Keith didn’t have that sort of faith for them, but he had it for Shiro. Despite all logic, he believed in that. 

“I do not know how long he will sleep,” Allura starts. Cautiously, almost as though afraid she might wake Shiro up with her words. She finally stops running her fingers over his fur, drawing her hand back to her knees. Without her touch, the white of Shiro’s tail tip dulls, turning gray beneath the shadows. “But when he wakes, he needs to go to the priestess. She’ll know what to do.”

“What priestess?”

Surprise lights up Allura’s face. A momentary banishment of her previous lament. “Has Shiro not mentioned Pidge to you?”

The name is familiar, though Keith dredges his memory for something more than just _familiar_. Brow furrowed, he looks down at Shiro as though the answer might burst from the ground like a newly hatched turtle. “I know she has something to do with the wine Shiro likes.”

“The fox nip one?” 

Allura actually laughs at that. Something takes flight in Keith’s chest at the sound.

“Yeah. . .it’s not bad.”

“So, he’s had you drink it as well? That must have been an adventure.”

“It was. I mean, it helped me, with the fox stuff.”

Coran chuckles quietly, though he says nothing more. Simply stands up and stretches, as though this had been nothing more than a garden party, and pads silently over to the gate.

“Well,” Allura says, rising up and brushing her hands against her thighs. Several stars shoot across the silver fabric like she had startled them from their cloud cover. Keith notes that not even the hem of her garment has collected any grime from their trek. “When he wakes up, tell him he is to go see her. Though I have the feeling he will figure that much out on his own.”

“And until then?”

“Until then, keep watch over him.”

A thought strikes him as Allura’s hand alights on the garden’s gate. He jumps to his feet, panic quickening his heartbeat.

“Allura!”

She turns, one eyebrow arched delicately. When she doesn’t reply, Keith moves a step forward, the words tangling on his tongue. He takes a breath.

“What about Lotor? And Sendak?”

The questions draw a look of consternation from her. She seems to contemplate them for a moment, examining the options like one might the selection at a buffet of leftovers, tapping her finger against the gate’s handle. Reluctant. A frown finally emerges only to be broken up seconds later by a sigh. 

“They will not come here. But as for Sendak’s recent actions, I must look into it further. If I find anything, I will be sure to let you know, Keith.”

It’s not the answer he had been looking for, but before he can complain, she’s gone. He turns back to Shiro, as unmoving as a grave, and consoles himself with a few simple facts.

Shiro is alive.

So is he.

And the moon still shines silvery-white over the land.

*

At the end of the first week, anxiety gave way to a new brand of dread for Keith. The first few days had been the easiest to bear. After all, Allura had left him with the impression that Shiro would be asleep for at least that long. But as the days trudged forward and a week passed without any signs of waking from Shiro, Keith began to think that this was not the sort of sleep someone simply _wakes_ from. He didn’t think it would be as easy as a kiss either, though there was something beautiful about the sight of Shiro in his fox form, nestled between the ember roses and the deep green of the sakaki leaves.

Not quite a grave. Not a place to say farewell either. 

Keith has to admit that waiting was never one of his strong suits. The first night though, exhaustion took him. He shifted and curled up beside Shiro, resting his head against the bigger fox’s neck and draping his tail over Shiro’s hips. The contrast of his red fur against Shiro’s black was startling, beautiful in a different way. Reminding him of life even in the darkest of moments. He had sighed, then settled into a sleep that had lasted the better part of the next day.

It was hunger that woke him. 

It was hunger that drove him to the market alone three days later. He had eaten through the pantry stores, even the odd fruits and vegetables that still had no names other than the ones he had given them. Like the jiji, or old man, eggplant, whose dark blue skin was always severely wrinkled, and with its hunchbacked body looked like it was glaring out at you as you cut it up. Or the kumo berries with their cloud-like peach fuzz that melted on your tongue like cotton candy. Normally, he and Shiro would go to the market twice a week to shop, sometimes a third trip for the odd spice that was found missing at the last minute. 

Keith has now made two such trips with no signs of Shiro having even stirred in his sleep. A full week. Each night, he shifted again and made his bed beside Shiro, listening to the steady beating of his heart until Sleep’s undertow dragged him beneath its waves. There, he would float about in dreams, memory-laced of his time with Shiro until they gave way to nightmares of the future. He would sometimes wake from them, the images fresh in his mind, his heart racing as he tried to recover from them. Dreams of Shiro being swallowed by the earth, inch by inch, and no matter how fast he dug, he couldn’t keep the dirt from piling over his body. Other times, just as the nightmares began to creep from the shadows of his mind, everything would fall back beneath a bright silver light. His dreams settled then under a blanket of stars, and he would sleep the deepest of slumbers until hunger gnawed at his belly once more.

By the second week, the nightmares had nearly stopped. As if they had realized Keith could not be moved by their foreboding into some reckless action. He had fallen into a pattern by now: waking at Shiro’s side, going into the house, showering, breakfast, cleaning the house, putting out the laundry (shifting that often had caused him to go back to using his old stash of human-world clothing), lunch, tending to the garden (always with a careful watch on Shiro), practicing with his flame, some variation of an exercise routine, dinner, another shower, then out into the garden to spend the rest of the night with Shiro. Every three days, he would go to the market. And every night, he would tell Shiro about what he had learned, who he had run across (the old weasel-woman that ran the knife stall had become a quick friend of his), and how many days it had been since he had last spoken to Shiro himself. 

He never voiced his desire to see Shiro again. Perhaps too afraid that in doing so he might render it an impossibility. That wish, Keith kept to himself, not even trusting it to the stars.

That’s the ache that put him to sleep. And it’s the one he woke with every morning, as persistent as the pangs hunger induced. 

On the twenty-second day, Keith returns from the market, unpacks his groceries as usual, and begins making himself a cup of tea. The black one that tastes faintly of anise. As usual. With the leaves steeping, he finally looks out the kitchen window into the garden, scouring the grounds until he can locate the tip of Shiro’s tail, the only part of him visible from this particular angle. After several moments with no tail-tip in sight, Keith starts to panic. In the last three weeks, no one has tried to barge into the garden, no one has knocked on the door, and even the vendors at the market had kept their questions locked within their throats. He knew they had wanted to ask him why he was suddenly making these trips alone, but every time the look on their faces shifted, a prelude to the inevitable ask, something caused them to stifle the desire. Not unlike a bird shot out of the sky mid-flight. Maybe that’s what happened to the unasked questions - they lay drowning in the reeds, surrounded by a puddle of their own blood until they expired. 

He turns on his heel and nearly stumbles back into the counter. Standing there in the entryway to the hall is Shiro. Fresh out of the shower, fully awake, and appearing no worse for the wear. Except for the look in his eyes, just a bit darker than usual, and the smile on his lips that tells Keith an apology is in the making. 

“You could have put a shirt on.”

He hadn’t meant to say that. Anything but that really. Maybe he had wanted to yell at Shiro for scaring him like that, or demand that apology for making him wait for so damn long, or. . .blurt out about his clothing, or lack thereof, because it’s the most obvious, least painful thing he could think of actually saying at that moment. 

Shiro blinks, glances down at his bare chest, then starts to laugh. His voice is husky from disuse, and it stirs up something in Keith his dwindling panic would like to condemn him for. 

“Sorry. I’m. . .here,” Shiro replies, looking a bit bewildered at the turn his words had taken. 

That does something else to Keith. A tremor works through his body, and his sight begins to blur, and a half-sob chokes his throat. He only nods at that, because yes, Shiro is here, and what more can someone say to such a statement? 

It’s an undeniable truth. 

Without a word, Shiro closes the distance between them. Soundless. Scentless. Yet, his presence filling the room, returning color to the world around him. As he wraps his arms around his body, Keith stands still, fighting every bit of honesty in him until it breaks him down into something entirely too human. His shoulders drop, his arms curl around Shiro, and he buries his head against the too bare (and hardly complaint worthy) chest. Listening. Listening. Listening to the quiet lub-dub of his heart, and the even quieter breaths from above, disturbing the strands of his hair as gently as a sigh from spring’s first breeze. 

“I made you worry,” Shiro murmurs. 

Another sob threatens to breach his throat. Keith shuts his eyes to it all, hoping that the act will dissolve his misplaced (or was it simply unacknowledged?) sorrow. 

“You’ve been here all this time?” 

Keith nods again. “I couldn’t leave you.”

He feels Shiro’s muscles tighten at that, his back going rigid, his shoulders locking. The exhale he lets loose next is heavy and warm against the top of his head. As though Shiro had unpacked something of his own and set it there, now perched upon Keith’s hair. With a shake of his head, he might send it tumbling down, having hardly known what it was to begin with. 

“How long has it been?”

“Just over three weeks.”

“Has anything happened?”

“No.” Keith sucks in a breath as Shiro’s fingers find the nape of his neck. “Nothing. . .”

A hum in reply to that. “Jeans and a T-shirt today, huh?”

“I don’t know how to wash a kimono.”

“Did something happen to yours?”

“No. But after the first week of wearing it, I thought it would probably need to be cleaned.”

Another chuckle from Shiro, just as husky as the first. Keith feels his cheeks start to heat up. As the sound begins to fade, he feels Shiro’s hold around him loosen. A bit too soon, if you asked him. Mostly because the hug allowed him to hide the red across his cheeks quite well, and now, without the wall of Shiro before him, he had to find some other means of concealing it. He slips out of Shiro’s arms and turns to the counter, the gesture a bit rapid, but the tea gave him a perfectly plausible excuse. If steeped too long, it became impossibly bitter, like all good things left untended. 

“Are you hungry?”

He can hear the pause Shiro gives. This half-breath hanging in the air between them as he picks through the words gathered on his tongue. 

“No, but tea sounds like a great idea,” Shiro answers. 

Keith swallows at that. “You’ve been asleep for three weeks. . .” _How are you not starving? Why haven’t you wasted away? Please let me help you._ “. . .I can make you something, Shiro.”

It’s not accusatory, though it could have been. Rather, there’s a plea, softened up by his own reluctance, placed quietly amongst his words. For three weeks, he’s felt useless. And now, it’s like the world had open up its possibilities to him again. The trick is always in trying to figure out where to start with them. 

A door swings open to his left. Keith glances over to find Shiro surveying the contents of the pantry.

“You’ve been going to the market.”

Not an answer, but a deflection. He would have flinched if not for the admiring lilt to Shiro’s voice. Since when had shopping for basic household items been a means of impressing someone? Keith doesn’t know, but he finds his heart reacting all the same to it. Perhaps it was no different than starting those simplistic tasks in another country, the language foreign, the customs unaccustomed to, and yet somehow managing to navigate all the sundry activities of the day-to-day well enough to make a living for yourself. 

“I still had to eat.”

“And you managed to pay for them too?”

That. . .well, there was _that_. Keith stares down at his tea like he might pull truth from the aroma of it along with some self-dignity. When he turns to look at Shiro again, it’s to find the man (human, not half-fox or full fox, just a man, beautiful and broken and perfectly fit for wrenching hearts) staring back at him with an eyebrow lifted. Fully expecting an answer, and yet somehow already amused by the potential ones he could receive.

Keith could almost hate him at that moment. If he weren’t beautiful and broken and somehow perfect. 

“I know where you keep the coins. . .” he admits. This time, there’s no hiding the flush on his cheeks. 

Shiro nods at that like everything is in complete order. “So, you broke into the box.”

“I didn’t break it! I. . .may have some skill with that kind of stuff.”

“Breaking into things or stealing them?”

“Breaking in.”

“I’m pretty sure when I first met you, you were also trying to steal someone’s dinner.”

“It was discarded!”

“Breaking in. . .”

Keith draws in a big breath and narrows his eyes at Shiro. “And stealing. I may be capable of both. But I didn’t steal from the market!”

Something sparks in Shiro’s eyes at that. Bright and thoroughly entertained by everything he had just witnessed.

“Well, you are a fox,” he says, nonchalant. 

The whole reply nearly sends Keith into a fit. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?! And why aren’t you trying to devour everything in there?!”

Okay. So, it does sort of send him into a fit. Or more like it broke down the walls he had been building up so carefully over the last three weeks until all he has is a pile of bricks scattered about his feet and a flood of emotion tumbling down over him. His chest heaves with the next inhale, his shoulders drop, defeated by his own feelings. 

“The sakaki flowers.”

The small, cream-white blooms that had burst into life all across the tree at Allura’s touch. As Shiro slept, they began to wither, one by one, each falling down to its final resting place when its life had been spent. Every night, Keith had brushed them from Shiro’s form, but something kept him from removing them from the garden completely. He left them, like a discarded blanket, around Shiro’s rear limbs and tail. The last of them had fallen this morning before he had left for the market. 

So many lives traded for one. 

When Keith’s gaze meets Shiro’s, he knows his heart has been left wide open. There’s a touch of pain, a bit of somberness, but burning brightest of all is the understanding that Keith would have done the same. Tomorrow, he would water the tree and offer it his thanks for all its efforts. Today, however. . .he could only look at Shiro like a man brought back from the grave because this world was not yet done with him.

 _He_ is not yet done with him. 

His lips part, but no sound emerges. Keith takes a step forward. Shiro watches him like one waiting for the inevitable end. 

“So, you’re okay?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper. Afraid, once more, that anything he does or says or fails to do might shatter this whole moment. He stops, just out of Shiro's reach, but the ache in his heart keeps going. Moving through time, moving through space, until it becomes clear that Shiro feels it as well.

“I’m okay, Keith. For now.” His expression has softened in a way that makes it look like Shiro has shed years from his life. Younger now. A bit more vulnerable. The gray of his eyes like moon-glow, the curve of his mouth boyish yet not without sadness. All of it reminding Keith of that moment when innocence meets experience, and both are forever changed by the encounter. “But, I need to go see someone.”

“Pidge.”

The name slips out automatically. Shiro doesn’t look surprised. He simply nods, and after another a moment of standing there, studying Keith as one might the remnants of a fallen star (something still beautiful even as it lays there earthbound, a hope realized), he starts to smile. 

Really smile.

“Are you coming with me?”

A single question. A simple smile. And suddenly Keith’s heart is back in his chest, beating its frantic beat now that it’s finally home. The smile that leaps to his lips must have been absolutely resplendent because, for the first time since they’ve met, Shiro is the one left blushing. 

“Did you even have to ask?”

*

On their way to the shrine (it’s near impossible, Shiro had said, to open a portal from the unearthly realm to the earthly when sacred spaces were involved), Keith had gotten a small lesson in kimono care. Namely - he isn’t to do it. The silk itself might as well be a class of supernatural all its own, able to adjust to its wearer’s form as needed - taking into account things like tails or wings - and required a touch they as kitsune simply did not have. So, twice a week, while they slept, the kimonos were attended to by those who knew best what to do. These small creatures, employed by the Plum Palace, kept a running list of each and every kimono made and those who were wearing them. No matter where in the world they were, these little beings would know precisely how to find them. The kimonos, that is. Not those who typically occupied them.

When asked to describe said creatures, Shiro’s nose wrinkled. Never talk to them, he had finally told Keith. They never shut up once you do.

As they typically came at night, while he was passed out and apparently none the wiser, Keith couldn’t imagine he would ever have the opportunity. But he made a mental note to never fall asleep in his kimono overnight. 

Shiro had brought them three blocks out from the shrine, in a small back alley behind a noodle shop that never opened before noon. According to Shiro’s watch, forever set to Japan Standard Time, it’s five to ten in the morning. They had stepped out into a typical fall morning: a slight chill, perfect sunshine, the smell of winter hiding in the air. Keith had chosen a red military-inspired jacket to throw over his T-shirt, already anticipating the change in weather he was about to encounter. It was light enough not to be overbearing for the time of year. Shiro had changed as well, donning his favorite dark wash jeans, a tight gray T-shirt (he had an aversion to logos, Keith had discovered) and a black biker jacket that skimmed his sides like sin courting Friday night’s thoughts. 

Whatever had happened to him during their run-in with Sendak seems to have taken its course. Keith doesn’t know if that was entirely due to the sakaki tree and its life-supporting flowers, or if, like so many viruses that plague the living, Shiro’s own defenses had conquered its effects and returned him back to the world as though nothing had happened at all. If it hadn’t been for this morning, with its tension and Shiro’s admission of needing to see Pidge, Keith might have convinced himself that the forest, Shay, the crystal cavern and all that happened after the discovery of the jewel had been nothing more than some nightmare induced by too much fox nip wine. And he had wanted to ask about that - the jewel. Had Sendak taken it? Or was Shiro still in possession of it? Had Shay stolen it back to potentially barter for the lives of her own tribe? Shiro hadn’t spoken of it. Keith didn’t know if he could either.

But the memory of it, as red as a dying sun, still burned in his mind. 

“This is it.” 

Keith glances up. And up. And up. “Why do so many shrines have to sit at the top of some godforsaken mountain?”

Laughter. Soft, intimate, shamelessly amused. Shiro is laughing, and Keith feels the very core of him melting. “Precisely because it’s not godforsaken.”

“You know what I meant,” Keith mutters, turning his attention back to the stone stairway. Peeking out over the last step, he can see the bright red of a torii gate. 

Shiro tips his head towards the stairs, smiling at Keith like he has nothing to fear, then begins making his way up. Completely unencumbered by the number of steps waiting to trip him up along his journey. Keith trudges up behind him, jumping the first few to catch up to Shiro, who could easily take two or three at a time and feel no worse for the effort of it. Rather than fixate on his own one-step-at-a-time pace, he lets his gaze wander the premises. Along the way, stone lanterns sit, no higher than his knee, with sloping roofs and small, smiling foxes affixed to the top of each. With every lantern they pass, a small blue flame lights up its hollowed belly. Beyond them, nothing but forest. Thick with cedar and cypress trees, it extends out, in both directions, left and right, far enough that Keith can’t see any neighboring houses butting up against it. Their branches stretch out overhead, nearly blotting out the sky, but every few paces, sunlight filters through. It dapples Shiro’s back in an ever-shifting pattern, a puzzle constantly rearranging itself, and it’s this that Keith eventually focuses on.

Like he somehow might find the answers to all the questions he’s always wanted to ask but never could bring himself to voice. Hell, maybe he could even unravel a few of the universe’s mysteries while he’s at it. It had that sort of promise to him.

As they reach the last set of stairs, three in total, Keith can finally begin to see the shrine grounds. Situated several feet back from the torii gate, two large fox statues flank a crushed gravel pathway. Not sitting all prim and proper like the typical presentation would have them, but standing, one with its head lifted to the sky, the other staring straight through the gate. Around their necks, thick collars of woven straw, the strands dyed red and white with several paper charms dangling from them. When a breeze kicks up, they flutter like tethered dreams, and from somewhere deeper in the shrine, bells chime along with them. 

Shiro takes the last step, then turns just inside the gate to wait for Keith. 

He should have been right there beside him. But he’s not. Keith lifts his right leg again, and as he sets it back down, aiming for the top of the stairway, finds it placed back beside his left. He tries again. Same outcome. 

“Keith?” Shiro sounds more amused than concerned, but it’s still there, ready to become something more tangible at a moment’s notice. 

“I can’t. . .” Keith mumbles, trying again. Leg up, then down, and right back to the same step he’s been standing on for the last minute. The frothy beginnings of frustration start to bubble up within him. 

Though his brow is furrowed, Shiro gives no other signs of alarm at his predicament. Instead, he swivels to his right, cups a hand around his mouth, and calls out, “Pidge, I need you to open the gate!”

A shrine attendant located in the far right corner doesn’t even turn his head. He continues sweeping up leaves, making neat piles of them across the courtyard, entirely oblivious. Keith stares, amazed.

“Why doesn’t he. . .”

“Because we’re on sacred ground,” Shiro cuts him off with a shrug. “The moment we hit the third flight of steps, we were rendered invisible to any human who doesn’t have the capacity to see us for what we really are. They could have been talking to us one minute, and would completely forget us the next if we ventured too far in.”

Keith mulls over that fact, turning it over in his mind like he’s trying to decipher the ruins left behind by a past life. “I never bothered with the shrines. Except to sleep as a fox sometimes. . .”

The corner of Shiro’s mouth quirks upwards. “They’re good for that.”

Before he can say anything more, a figure comes dashing out from around one of the buildings. Pidge. Or so the assumption would go. The moment she sees Shiro standing in the gateway, however, she pulls to a halt, hands thrown up in the air in what Keith guesses is a replacement for any sort of profanity she may have wanted to yell out instead.

“You called me out here for nothing! I had to entrust Lance with my turn!” she shouts. Despite her words, she continues to stalk towards them with all the barely pent-up anger of a miniature rhinoceros looking to upheave the nearest target.

“I wouldn’t have called you here if I didn’t need you,” Shiro replies calmly. 

Used to it, is what Keith would call that. 

“You’re through the gate, Shiro. I see you standing _right there_ and. . .oh. . .” As Pidge’s attention finds Keith, all her energy deflates. She pulls to a halt beside Shiro, looks at him, then back at Keith, then to Shiro once more. “Who’s this guy?”

“Pidge, this is Keith. He’s another kitsune. And given how information never stays buried for long in our realm, I’m sure Lance or Hunk or who knows who else has probably already told you about him.”

There’s something self-deprecating about the way Shiro conveys that. Like the joy of introductions had been long forfeited to him. He still manages a smile though, as warm as ever.

Pidge, for her part, looks nothing like a priestess. Or a shrine maiden for that matter. She’s dressed in a pair of army green cargo shorts, a sky blue hoodie, and remains completely barefoot. Light brown hair cropped above her shoulders. A pair of round spectacles framing amber eyes that continue to peer at him like he’s some sort of once-in-a-century phenomenon. 

“Huh. He’s cute. . .I mean not my type or anything but. . .” She glances over at Shiro, a smirk curving slow and dangerous across her lips. “Some people might go for it though.”

“Pidge.” 

The warning in that name doesn’t go unnoticed by either of them. Pidge pulls herself back up, having apparently completed her inspection of Keith, and adjusts her glasses. 

“If he’s a kitsune, he should be able to walk right in.”

Deep down in the very core of all that he is, something balks at that statement. Something he doesn’t know. Not how to name or where to rightly place it. Not even what infused it with sudden life. Unfamiliar with it, Keith feels the singe of frustration again. He opens his mouth, only to find Shiro speaking instead, his gaze fixed on Keith. It’s full of the same warning he had given to Pidge.

“We’re still working on that.”

Pidge crosses her arms over her chest and begins tapping her foot against the ground. “Is he _really_ a kitsune?”

“Are you even Japanese?” Keith spits out in reply. He can feel the hair along the back of his neck rising and knows that all it will take is another shove to send him snarling into his fox form.

The affront, however, doesn’t seem to hit Pidge. Shiro looks mildly mortified, though he seems to have resisted the act of placing his palm over his face. Keith doesn’t miss the way his fingers twitch in the air, denied any right to react. For a moment, a very brief and perilous moment, he feels regret for having let his anger get the better of him. 

“I’m not, actually.” Pidge says it like it’s scientific fact. Here is my genus, and this is my species, and now let’s get into my family history. “We’re Italian-American. My dad was invited here a few years ago to work on some big engineering project, which is how we ended up in this place. But it would seem what with the Italian side of things, meaning Roman somewhere down that line, my family heritage involves priests and priestesses. You know, like divine oracles, people being the oracles, though that seemed to be more of a Western thing and not so big here, or so I thought, which is just weird you know, given how all religions tend to really be about the same thing when you break them down. . .”

“Pidge.” Less warning. More exasperation. “The gate?”

“Oh, right.”

She claps her hands together, one solid smack that resounds across the grounds, then bows her head toward the gate. Her lips move, words fired in rapid succession, but Keith doesn’t hear a thing. More like moving through the motions, all intent in the heart, rather than forcing a sermon over a crowd. He likes it, strangely enough. 

The air shimmers before him, brief enough to call a trick of sunlight. He lifts his right leg and places it firmly on the shrine’s grounds. His left foot follows soon after, but not before he had tested his full weight on the right, to ensure he wasn’t going to simply sink into the earth, forever cursed or banished or whatever it is that happens to the unwanted on holy grounds. 

“He still hasn’t found a way to manifest his true form,” Shiro supplies when Pidge tosses him a look full of skepticism. “I’ve gotten him to his fire, and he can take on his yōkai form now. . .”

“What about just a fox?”

“I can do that!” Keith butts in. Being talked around rather than included left something strange fluttering about in his chest, like a heron with a broken wing. Just flapping, flapping, unable to take flight. “I’ve been able to ever since I was a kid. . .What are you doing here anyway? I mean, you said you’re not even from this country, so why would a shrine take you in?”

They continue walking, past the statues and down the pathway that leads to the center of the main courtyard. Without the trees crowding it out, the sun shines down more relentlessly here. Pidge steers them towards one of the buildings, a small rectangular one with sloping eaves that hang over a verandah.

“That’s entirely Shiro’s fault,” she says. Her grin borders on devious, and does nothing to dispel the impression that she herself might be an imp rather than a vessel for divine will. “I followed him up to the shrine one day after school. Not every day you see a grown man with fox ears flicking about on his head.”

“Most people would keep on walking,” Keith says flatly. 

“Yeah, well, I’m not most people. I was curious, and I’ve seen things like it before. My whole life really. I don’t think my mom gets it, but she’s never questioned me. Matt gets it though. He can sometimes hear them, just never seems able to see them. My dad is the one who told me about our family lineage. He’s not able to see them either, but I guess he’s done some stuff. Point being, they know I’m not crazy, and so do the guys here at this shrine.”

Pidge skirts around the end of the building. Shadow swallows them whole once more, and Keith feels the chill of it abruptly. 

“I had just had another run-in with one of the Galra. Nothing bad, but they had been staking out this place. Allura sent me here to check it out,” Shiro continues. His side of the story. “I had barely made it through the gate when this one -” He turns and smiles over at Pidge. Keith doesn’t miss the glint of mischief in his eyes. “- called out to me. Accused me is more like it, actually.”

“I thought you were one of the bad guys, okay! How was I to know that you were some celestially ordained guardian?!” Pidge lets out a huff. Cheeks puffing up and everything. It reminds Keith of an infuriated chipmunk, which when in his fox form, is a rather imposing sight. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, he’s completely human at the moment. Well, human looking, at least. 

Another corner rounded. Behind the rectangle of a building is another smaller one. Square, with the same sloping eaves, a small porch, and sliding doors thrown open to the world. Beside it, and consuming the vast majority of the back right corner of the shrine, is a sizable pond. No path leads to it, but the grounds around it are immaculately kept. Not even a stray leaf mars the water’s surface. Keith’s gaze lingers there for a moment.

“You found out soon enough,” Shiro laughs. He stops when he catches Keith staring at the pond. His expression shifts, softening until the amusement has faded away into something almost like fondness. “Keith?”

He shakes his head. The water holds a familiar scent to it, like the sea. Salted morning air. Out of place in a mountain shrine, but nothing he did could pinpoint the smell. It evaded him, as most memories tend to do, mere fragments rather than whole embodiments of what had been. “You were saying?”

“I was saying,” she begins, eyebrow lifted and a half-loaded smirk teasing her mouth, “or I was going to say something about Shiro being impossible, but you seem more like that type. But anyway, long story short, the head priest here caught me talking with Shiro. Or well, he found out about Shiro from me, and then about the Galra, and next thing I knew he was inviting me to be a part-timer because weird things had been happening here lately. Honestly, most of it wasn’t much of a big deal, but maybe it is for places like this. I helped them sort out a few minor creature problems, and Shiro got them to strengthen the defenses of this place. With my help, of course. Now, I mostly spend my time learning about the things that live in the other world - Shiro calls it the unearthly realm - did you know it had no association with Hell? Anyway, the things in that realm because they’re different from the ones in America and Europe, and since I have a knack for this thing, why not, you know? Most of you all are easier to hang out with anyway. . .”

How she hadn’t taken a breath during any of that baffles Keith. He simply nods along with her story, glancing over at Shiro only once to express his bewilderment, before turning back to her just in time for the tail ending of her exposition. Truncated as it probably was. The last sentence hits him though. Her voice had dropped just slightly, barely discernible to most humans, but for him, it had been like cutting her down to another frequency. Less energetic. He doesn’t know what to say to that, and the look Shiro had given her, full of empathetic understanding, only reminded Keith of how hard it is to find the places you belong. You could spend lifetimes seeking them out. People had destroyed lives, civilizations all for the lack of one. 

Home or something like it. 

“Sooooo,” She drags the word out like it might somehow drag out a few words from them as well. When nothing seems forthcoming, Shiro merely clearing his throat and Keith staring at her in full anticipation of what she might say next, Pidge drops her shoulders with a heavy sigh. “Are you guys going to tell me why you’re here or not? And don’t tell me it’s the Galra again. . .”

“It’s the Galra. Again.” Shiro deadpans it. 

Keith tries not to laugh. This is not a laughable situation. 

“Who’s acting up this time?” Pidge asks, tossing a look at the building. What had once been a completely silent space is now starting to show signs of life. Muffled breathes, the faint echoes from a television, probably taken off mute and now having its volume capacity slowly tested. 

“Sendak. And who knows how many others. He’s never acted of his own volition before,” Shiro answers.

Yeah, not a laughable matter. Keith feels himself sobering up immediately at the mention of Sendak’s name. It doesn’t help when the only thing associated with the nekomata is pain. His. Shiro’s. Probably Shay’s too. 

“Yeah, but wasn’t that all before Zarkon met his end? Maybe Lotor’s putting him up to something now,” she muses. Not convinced apparently. Or maybe just playing devil’s advocate. 

“No one’s heard from Lotor for months now. And the last time anyone had, it was only him and his so-called generals at the Cat’s Tongue Parlor.”

“What about the witch?”

“Disappeared after Zarkon’s death.”

“So, maybe Sendak wants to fill the power vacuum. He always sounded the type to me. . .”

“He was going after the fire gem.”

“There are a couple of those, Shiro. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Kasai.”

Pidge’s expression shifts completely. From vaguely amused to honest alarm in the span of a second. Bringing a hand to her mouth, she starts murmuring to herself, shaking her head every so often, and after a minute of this, looks back up at Shiro. “Wasn’t that enshrined though? No one but a god should have been able to take it, or a human blessed by one. . .certainly no yōkai.”

“I don’t know how, but it ended up with the mountain oni. Shay also mentioned something else - Sendak or someone working with him had turned most of her clan back to ‘the old blood.’ A song had caused the shift.”

“Don’t the jewels resonate with some celestial instrument? I’ll have to -“

“The Great Goddess’ lute.” The words drop from Shiro’s lips like a cement block in a bay. 

“That went missing along with the Great Goddess. Well before any of our time here, Shiro. Even yours.”

Shiro exhales. He holds his arms out at his sides, palms facing up as if to show he doesn’t have the answers, not one hidden anywhere. “I’m not saying it is, Pidge, but it’s the only thing I can think of if they’re coming after the jewels. The tide one has already gone missing from its shrine. And with the Galra staking out this place. . .”

“Shiro.”

Keith doesn’t know why he cut in, but this isn’t why they came here. Or maybe it’s part of the reason, but when Allura had entrusted the task to him, of bringing Shiro to Pidge, he knew it had nothing to do with these jewels or the Galra but with saving some part of Shiro himself. Whatever is left of him, so he didn’t lose that too. And he doesn’t understand it all - the things Shiro has lost and why he needs Pidge or those flowers in the garden with its well-worn bed that told him more truth than Shiro had been willing to let slip since he awoke - but he knows he needs to do this. 

He clears his throat, hoping to quell his nerves long enough to get something through his mouth. Enough to give a reason for saying Shiro’s name like it’s something with weight and merit. A name with someone attached to it who is worth fearing for. As for his part, Shiro looks surprised, maybe even unaware. Pidge stares at him curiously, though something passes through her gaze that tells him she suspected something more beyond what Shiro had been feeding her. He rolls his tongue across the roof of his mouth, tries to find the syllables to string his words together, and draws a blank when his gaze lands on Shiro once more.

“You need another ofuda.”

Again, like scientific fact. Only this is more along the lines of world-ending potentials if courses aren’t changed. The sort of scientific facts that carry dire consequences if ignored. 

“Shiro! Dammit, you should have led with that!” Pidge cries out. “I have to shower, and clean up. . .and for gods’ sake, give the fire jewel to Keith! You know I can’t perform this with another holy artifact messing things up. Allura entrusted him with that one kimono, right? Looks like flames?”

“How. . .how do you. . .” Keith stammers.

Pidge cuts him off with a flourish of her hands and vague gesture towards the building. It’s gone silent again, though he gets the impression something, maybe the building itself, is listening in on them. “Information, Keith! Now, both of you go wait in there until I’m ready!”

There is no option B to this, just option A. Go and wait. And even if he or Shiro had wanted to protest this point, Keith gets the impression neither of them would have won out against Pidge in her current state. She’s a hurricane dressed in human form, thoughts churning miles per minute, the need to act storming through her limbs, and not one of them capable of stopping her. She pivots sharply on foot and heads into the larger rectangle building without another word to them. 

Silence looms over them. Keith glances around him and watches as a stray leaf swirls on the wind and lands on the pond’s far too tranquil surface. Not even a ripple in its wake.

“Take it.”

When Keith turns back to Shiro, the first thing he sees is a small black bag, silk with a red string tying it closed. He knows instinctively that the jewel is inside of it. Shiro holds it out to him like it’s his right to claim it.

“Pidge said something about that kimono Allura gave me. . .” Keith rolls the thought around his mind like a shooter marble against the flat of one's palm. Wondering how best to aim and knock out as many potentials as possible. “And this jewel has something to do with fire, just like that kimono, right?”

Shiro seems to weigh his options. Finally, he exhales and offers Keith a defeated smile. Still warm, still kind. Fully accepting of his loss. “Those kimono, yours and mine, are made from the souls of elemental beings. Not every kimono in our realm is like them. Rather, it’s something the gods craft, when they find that a spirit is about to be depleted or when they come across one that refuses to exist within the limits of its nature. It’s a way for those beings to still live on.”

His mouth pulls to a tight, unwavering line at that. “Does that mean they can think and feel and _see_. . .”

With a shake of his head and a laugh on his tongue, Shiro replies, “Not entirely. But they do have special qualities. Take yours for example - it can protect you from flames, and should we ever find your other form, your true form, then it might even make your foxfire all the more powerful. That being said, it’s also a temporary hiding place for that jewel.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Keith admits, his brow furrowing, the line of his mouth broken by a frown.

“It’ll become obvious once we get back home.”

There’s comfort in those words. It’s not just in the way Shiro says it, but in how it includes him as part of that landscape. As if Shiro’s house is no longer just a place for him to exist.

“Should we go inside?” 

Keith nods. Without any further information forthcoming, it feels like the only thing he could do. 

The building is more of a community center than some sort of holy shrine space. About enough room for a handful of people. Tatami mats, well-kept, line the floors, and in several alcoves around the room, various scrolls hang. Some with nothing more than paintbrush foxes, carrying keys or red-cloth bundles in their mouths, clearly in the midst of some task. Others hold scared sayings, prayers for the gods. Beneath each scroll, a spray of sakaki or a careful arrangement of flowers. A place for private talks, greeting esteemed guests or. . .playing video games. 

Seated at the far end of the room, before a television set on mute and a pair of Nintendo Wii controllers, are two figures. One easily recognizable. The other, a stranger. It’s the latter of the two that carries the faint smell of seawater on him, causing Keith’s nose to wrinkle as he breathes it in deeper.

“Hunk, Lance. . .so you’re the ones. . .” Shiro doesn’t bother finishing, instead just laughing with a shake of his head. “I should have known you’d be here with her.”

Leaning back for a better view of them, Hunk waves a hand in a greeting. “We have bets going on with this Smash tournament. Loser has to gather all the flowers and stuff on Pidge’s list. If you’re interested. . .” 

“I’m gonna pass,” Shiro answers. But he turns to Keith with a quirk of his eyebrow. As if to say, _want to give it a go_?

“Whoa, whoa. Now, wait a minute here. Who gets to say this guy can just cut in on this deal?”

The stranger. Lance. Somewhere in the back of his head, the name rings familiar. Heard but not known, like a dream from one’s childhood where all the details have gone fuzzy but the feeling still persists, as cool and clear as winter rain. He’s facing Keith now, his lips twisted into a scowl, blue eyes narrowed. Like the rest of them, he’s dressed for the human realm: blue jeans, white T-shirt, barefoot. Several leather bracelets line his wrists, each studded with crystals of various colors (from the palest whites to the deepest greens) from the cool end of the spectrum (no reds or oranges here), and around his neck, attached to a thin piece of leather, rests a small vial filled with something that glitters, like sunlight hitting waves, every time Lance moves. 

Keith folds his arms across his chest and returns the glare trying to pierce him. “Doesn’t sound like much of a deal if the only thing happening is a chore for the loser.” 

“Oh, there’s more than just a chore!” Lance shoots back.

“No, there isn’t,” Hunk interjects. 

“Wait. So, what are we playing for exactly?” 

“To not be a loser?”

“Pidge set us up!”

Defeat had never sounded so. . .merry. Or less accusatory. Shiro bumps his elbow against Keith, drawing his attention to him. There’s a smile on his lips, lighter than most Keith had seen. Almost like it had nothing to hide. He takes a step closer, hips aligning, and tips his head towards Keith. At the last minute, Shiro turns it so that his words brush against Keith’s ear. 

“It’s getting to play on that game system that’s the real prize. Pidge simply gives them the duties to help keep them busy.”

The real conspiracy here.

“Whatever,” Lance mutters. From the corner of his eye, he glances over to Shiro and Keith. His lips purse together, reluctant to let any further words through. But something seems to get the better of him, and with his chin jutting out, he opens his mouth. “How much trouble are you in, Shiro?”

Worry infiltrates his voice. It’s the last thing Keith had expected to hear, but then he begins to see the traces of it working its way through Lance’s body. The curve of his back as he hunches forward, the listless drifting of his fingers over the controller, the faint frown troubling his lips. Not for the first time (and he realizes it’s unlikely to be the last) since Shiro had brought him to the unearthly realm is Keith reminded of how much history he has there. Shiro’s history. A thousand years and more of living and fighting and making a something of himself. So much of something that everyone seems to know who the guy is.

No, not just that. It’s more than just knowing Shiro. It's revering him. Respecting him. Putting any number of hopes on his shoulders. 

And yet, the fragility that seems to have encapsulated Lance at that moment tells him that there’s a lot still unknown about the man. Even to those who may have known him for a thousand and some odd years. 

When Shiro doesn’t answer right away, Hunk clears his throat. He’s staring at his own controller, like maybe if he pushes the right combination with just the precise wrist movement, he might have a chance at settling this.

“We heard you out there. Well, we heard Pidge if I want to be exact. . .”

“It’s going to be all right.” Shiro sounds reassuring. With a smile on his lips like he believes it too. The kind of self-assurance whole nations would stand behind.

And Keith knows that somewhere in all of this, Shiro honestly does believe in that. This isn’t simply faking it until he’s made it. Shiro has been there. He knows what he needs to stand at a place where all of him is present and accounted for. What Keith doesn’t know is just how much of Shiro quietly accepts all of that. Because he’s seen it. The bits of Shiro that second-guess and make the gray of his eyes just a shade darker and put the weight of solemnity into his smiles. It’s the look that haunts all survivors, those who have seen far more than any living thing should rightly have seen and yet becomes inevitable for some. 

As long as wars rage and ladders exist to places promising heaven, those things will be seen. Some end up broken by them. But people like him? And like Shiro? Somehow, they make it through. 

“Don’t forget about us, okay? You’ve been there for us. . .we’re here for you too,” Lance says softly. A bit meekly even, as though some inner-confusion has taken the strength of his convictions and turned them against himself. 

“I know, Lance. And I appreciate that.”

A quiet hum of acknowledgment is all Shiro gets in response to that. Lance hits the pause button once more, flooding the game with life. 

“Not cool, man! I wasn’t ready!” Hunk exclaims, nearly dropping his controller as he rushes to save Donkey Kong from an unfortunate end. 

“Early bird gets the worm, Hunk! Gotta be quicker than that!”

“They get fish too.”

“I’m too big for any bird.”

“Not a tengu.”

Their bickering fades to murmured retorts amidst of slew of grunts and groans. Keith watches silently, Shiro just as quiet at his side. He can tell something about what was said still sat there, staring down Shiro like a ghost with unfinished business. Waiting to be heard. Or maybe just waiting to pass on. It feels a bit like losing him, so Keith does the unthinkable.

He takes Shiro’s hand in his. Doesn’t glance down. Doesn’t ask. Simply tests the distance between them with a brush of fingers, then slides his palm against Shiro’s. Slow but not hesitant. The air rushes out of Shiro’s lungs in a sudden sigh. Several seconds later, he slinks his fingers in between Keith’s and gives a gentle squeeze.

_Thank you._

If Shiro is only half here, then Keith wants to be the thing that tethers him to this world. At least until the rest of Shiro comes home 

He doesn’t know how many minutes pass like that, with them as spectators to the battle between Hunk and Lance. In that time, Keith learns that Hunk likes to switch between Donkey Kong and Pit, Lance lost last week’s battle royale and was saddled with the punishment of only being able to select Jigglypuff as his main fighter, and on the rare occasions Shiro was lured into a round, he only ever played Fox. 

“Why would I want to be anything else?” 

Keith also learned that Shiro could be strangely petulant about this idea. A rather endearing trait, though he isn’t ever going to admit that. But he likes it, the way Shiro takes pride in what he is like it’s not some bane or unfortunate incurable condition.

After another loss, Lance tosses his head back and moans up at the ceiling. Keith catches the brief flash of serrated teeth, flickering into sight like a disjointed movie projection. 

“So, what are you exactly?” 

The question leaps out of him like a startled stag. 

“Me?” Lance gestures to himself, index finger pointed, then over to Hunk. “Or him?”

“I know what Hunk is. We met down at the night market. I don’t know you though. . .”

Setting his controller aside, Lance sprawls out on his side, one hand holding his head, the other teasing at the vial around his neck. “Interested in old Lance now, are you?”

“He’s a ningyo,” Hunk calls out. “Just a plain old mermaid, nothing to see here.”

“Dammit, Hunk! You ruined the surprise!”

“No, you ruined it yourself. Well, more like you ruined the whole atmosphere with that. . .whatever come on that was supposed to be. . .”

“That was not a come on! You would know it if I was coming onto you!

“Uh-huh.”

“That was my song voice! Do you have any idea how many people I have led -”

“No one cares, Lance,” Pidge groans as she steps into the room. Her hair is still slightly damp, and Keith detects the faint scent of peonies in her wake. As for her state of dress, much like her first impression, it bucks all expected conventions. One hoodie had been traded out for another, this one a deep pine green. Beneath that, what Keith imagines to be some sort of dress, loose fitting and a paler shade of mint. The skirt of it drifts about her legs like the tide, though the multi-layered fabric reminds him more of underbrush than water. A tangle of gossamer weaving around her, light and airy, yet holding impossible depth to it. She’s barefoot once again, but Keith had seen a pair of sandals left on the porch, just outside of the room. 

In her hands, she carries a sakaki branch and small slip of rectangular paper. Black ink dots the face of it, one minute fashioning words, the next drifting like shadow broken apart by sunlight. The branch she places directly in the center of the room, effectively dividing it in two. She then turns and stomps to the other side, purpose heavy in every step she takes. Arriving at the opposite wall, she spins around and claps her hands, the echo dulled by the paper held between her palms.

“Everyone, stay on that side, got it?”

They all nod. But if Keith had to say anything about that, it’s that he felt _compelled_ to nod. 

“Good. Now, Shiro, walk forward. Make sure it’s in a direct line with the branch I set down there.”

Shiro nods again, albeit a bit stiffly. He takes the first step, draws in a deep breath, then proceeds the rest of the way like a man following the red string of his fate. When he reaches the branch, the air around him shimmers, seeming almost to quiver. What steps over the branch isn’t Shiro as he had last been seen, but his fox form. All nine tails of him. The part Keith can’t make sense of is how Shiro’s body remains standing on the one side of the branch, as though he had been split into two - human and yōkai. The fox continues moving forward until Pidge lifts her hand, and then, he sits. Keith can still see the single tail shadowed out, like it got misplaced in another dimension but is still undeniably a part of Shiro’s whole. The longer the fox form exists, the more solid it seems to become. And in return, Shiro’s human form starts to fade until it has no more substance to it than a hologram, another shadow self.

Hunk and Lance remain silent beside him. Both look concerned, but neither carries the surprise Keith still feels. As though this isn’t the first time they had witnessed such an event.

Maybe it isn’t. 

He returns his attention to Shiro. A small orb, no larger than the jewel now tucked away in his jacket pocket, floats above Shiro’s tails. Its light is dim, and as Keith focuses in on it, he realizes why: half of it has gone dark. The entire right side is nothing more than a void. The longer he stares at it, the more he feels like it’s pulling him in. It would consume him - heart, body, soul - if he let it. As desperate as he is to look away, he can’t. Like the damn thing had sunk its fangs into him and is now slowly dragging him into its den. Every so often, when his gaze catches the left side, the one still pouring out its light, the hold from the right side diminishes. 

And then it’s gone. 

The strip of paper Pidge had been holding is now wrapping itself around the orb. Bit by bit, it folds itself to the circular shape, layer by layer, until the last corner of it smooths itself flat. Shiro appears to be frozen, his tails no longer flicking to and fro, ribs barely expanding. Pidge’s lips move in silent prayer once more.

“Ah. So, this is where they all are.”

Keith’s gaze cuts to the location of that voice. Unknown to him, but oddly refined. Completely unperturbed by the sight within. Sitting at the very edge of the porch is a rather large black cat with vibrant yellow eyes. Unnatural yellow. Behind it, a tail weaves back and forth followed a bit more slowly by a second one. 

_Nekomata._

Pidge doesn’t stop uttering her prayer but her gaze is imploring them to stop whoever this creature is from interfering. The voice wasn’t Sendak’s. It’s none that Keith recognizes, but he can see it on all their faces. Whoever it is, is no stranger to them. 

“Lotor.”

The former emperor’s son. An emperor. Or so the Galra had called Zarkon. Allura had never quite explained that bit, about how it was son came to kill his father. Not that the topic had seemed distasteful to her celestial senses, but rather, there was something in the tale that she was reluctant to tell. The history lesson had been a vital one, though, even if it left him with questions that lingered now. 

Tails still swishing, languidly (just as a cat’s does when it seems to be contemplating whether to bite or enjoy the hand currently petting it though perhaps the joy was in the contemplation of that fact itself - the biting), Lotor gives his right paw a delicate shake. Keith gets the distinct impression he would like to lick it but has restrained himself. Whether out of decorum or pride, he will probably never know. What he does understand is that Lotor is not supposed to be here.

“What are you doing here?” Lance. The scorn of his words is scathing. Even if the question is the obvious one.

Keith notices, though, the way Lance has dropped to the back of the room, courting the shadows like an old friend owing him a favor. He exchanges a glance with Hunk that leaves him feeling misplaced. The same way getting swallowed up in a foreign language deprives you of your grounding. He had missed something, unable to translate, and it invites an unease into his gut that Keith finds difficult to dispel. Hunk’s jaw sets. He takes a step forward and reaches towards the wall where a staff sits propped against it. A pair of wings shoots out from the top of it; attached to each wing, three loops of burnished gold. They remain eerily silent, even when Hunk drags the staff to his side. 

“What, no hello?” Lotor chides. His gaze slides from Lance and Hunk to where Pidge is still chanting, her hands clasped, fingers locked tightly together. Shiro still hasn’t moved. The corner of Lotor’s mouth quirks upward. A cat wearing a smirk, the look seamless in its expression. Predatory amusement. “Though, I suppose it is on me for barging in on your little ceremony here. As a token of good faith, I’ll tell you. You see, that _witch_. . .” The word drops from his mouth with all the disgust an English rose might have for the common weeds of the world. “. . .has taken a keen interest in a certain collection of jewels. And naturally, what interests the witch, interests me.”

Keith grits his teeth. In his pocket, the jewel feels like it’s melting against his skin. Instinctively, he knows not to let go of it. Not under Lotor’s gaze.

“I propose a trade if you’ll hear me out, fox.”

There’s no mistaking who precisely Lotor is directing his words to, Keith can see that clearly. Those yellow eyes are fixed on him, like the sun’s gaze locked on the earth, promising life as much as it does death under the right conditions. If it had been meant to inspire fear, he feels nothing of it. Rather, an inkling of an emotion, protective, not arrogant, in its creation. His fingers curl tighter around the jewel.

“Don’t listen to him, Keith.” 

Pain has scoured Shiro’s voice raw. It inspires a visceral reaction in him. He doesn’t understand. Maybe he never fully will, but he knows that something has transpired over the years, long before he knew Shiro, and the effects of it still breathe today. Continues to open wounds that should have long since scarred over. He feels them as if they had been carved into his own skin, this whole history of hurt. Brought to life by the voice of someone he owes his very future to. He knows better than to pull his eyes from Lotor. But gods be damned if he doesn’t want to turn to Shiro just then. 

“Yeah, Keith! This guy is bad news. He’s a traitor to his kind,” Lance spits out from behind him. 

A new piece of information. But earthly or unearthly, the world is full of such stories. The causes of the just and those disillusioned by their own ideas of justice. The people who uphold them and those who inevitably betray them, whether for personal gains or a newfound sense of right. If it carries a conscience and a soul, it seems there’s no end to the potentials of the term _traitor_.

“Now, that’s bit presumptuous,” Lotor says, unruffled by the accusations. He does have the good grace to at least feign indignation over it, however. “The unfortunate situation of my clan aside, you may like what I can do for you. In fact, I think there’s something you’d like very much. . .” 

A flick of a glance to Shiro. The moment Lotor’s gaze leaves him, Keith feels the air lighten around him. Breathable again. But what has caught Lotor’s attention, for the moment at least, is enough to silence the very beat of his heart: the soul orb. Lotor’s tails give a sharp flick to the left as if to exclaim _checkmate!_ to them all. In response, the corner of his mouth lifts, threatening to expose a canine tooth, disregarding the idea that a human one doesn’t quite make the point of a fox’s. 

“You see, I have need of those jewels,” Lotor continues. Completely undaunted. “To be honest, they’re probably much safer with me than with any of you given how that witch is after them.”

Wind rushes over the porch. Several stray leaves go tumbling past, but not a single hair on Lotor’s body is disturbed. 

“Don’t you dare hand that jewel over to him, Keith,” Pidge growls. Menace drips from her words, and for a moment, Keith feels a begrudging respect for the priestess. Considering he’d never been one for religion in general or the ecclesiastical arts. At this moment, however, it’s difficult not to find her a bit awe-inspiring. Like some modern-day Medea - bestowing gifts or murder as she sees fit. “How did you even get in here?!”

“Oh, that?” Lotor glances off to the left, skyward. “It seems you’ve left a hole or two in your barrier. But, I guess you didn’t account for half-breeds, did you?”

Brow drawing together, she stares at Lotor. As if trying to deny her shock. She doesn’t hide it very well, which only seems to delight Lotor.

“You weren’t aware of that, were you? Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not just any half-breed. While I may be Galra, it was a goddess who had her hands in helping create me.”

“You said you could help,” Keith cuts in irritably. It’s not that this new revelation hasn’t gripped his attention, but rather, has done more than just that. The things Lotor is speaking of unsettle some part of him, and he feels it, like nails across skin, trying to break into him. Whatever it is, Keith decides this is not the place for inviting it in. Better then, to focus, on the main task. Especially with Shiro, now whole and human again, on his knees and breathing as though he’s just run a marathon, sweat slicking on his forehead. “Why shouldn’t I just make you?”

“Do you really think you’re capable of that as you are now?” Again, that amusement, tinged with just a bit of scorn.

The growl bursts from his throat quicker than Keith can catch it. Not that it matters. It’s a fuse that had been lit, and that is just the first of the explosions threatening. He can feel it, this bright burning heat filtering up from his core. He could scorch the earth with it. Of this, Keith is certain. As the sound dies on his lips, the telltale signs of a shift about to happen overtake him. That lift of his lip, the exposure of a canine lengthening, the way his eyes take in the light as if to absorb the darkness itself. . .

“Now, just what do we have here?” Lotor’s voice carries a genuine surprise to it. He rises onto all fours, tails upright and curled at the tip like question marks. Then, his expression changes, quick as a wasp’s sting and just as vicious. Words prodding just to discover the worst. As he continues, his gaze remains fixed on Keith. “Perhaps, I should just pluck that jewel from you. It appears as though you’re hardly a good fit for it after all.”

Taking the opportunity, Hunk lunges for Lotor. He’s fast, even without the propulsion of his wings, and arrives at the sliding door track, designating porch from the inner room, before Lotor can attempt to place one paw over the threshold. Swifter than his feet are his hands, fingers flying through a variety of monastic signals with the staff held between them. By the end, the whole thing having taken no more than seconds, he lets out a guttural _Ha!_ and slams the end of the staff against the floor. The golden rings chime loudly as they hit against one another. “Lance, get ready!”

A look of abject repugnance washes over Lotor’s face. Even as a cat, the thinly veiled distaste for what had just happened is all too apparent. “And here I thought birds preferred to fly off in the face of danger.” He takes a step back, then turns to look over at Lance. “Fish too.”

“I’m not just any fish, you wretched cat!”

Lotor lifts an eyebrow at that. “You’re certainly no dragon though. . .”

Lance snarls at the perceived injury of that statement. Keith feels the fury of it all - Lotor’s frustration, Lance’s wounded pride, Shiro’s pain - bubbling in his chest, feeding the idea that he should shift into something more animalistic. More primal. Capable of shedding off his emotions and simply handing itself over to the fight they had inspired. 

“Keith. . .”

Shiro’s voice cuts through the firewall he’s been building inside of him. Soft, not quite pleading but reaching out to him, trying to understand. And just like that, where flames had been licking at his insides, promising him power, there is only smoke and ash. Keith exhales heavily, upper lip lowering over canines which have returned to their human’s blunt sharpness, and turns to look at Shiro. He’s pulling himself slowly to his feet. His chest still heaves; sweat still lines his brow. But he looks better, less troubled, more present in the moment. 

Hunk yells something unintelligible, but it spurs Pidge into action. She moves to his side, repeating the same hand signals he had, and throws her hands up into the air before her. Only then does Keith see it: a barrier. Shimmering like a hummingbird’s wings and just as ferocious in its life. Lotor continues to stand outside of it, contemplating its very nature as one might a Rubik’s cube, fully intent on solving it within the minute. 

“Get Shiro and that jewel out of here. Now!” she calls out over her shoulder. The command is non-negotiable.

“Argh! All right already!” Lance snaps back. He’s pulled open a door on the other side of the room, leading out the backside of the building. On the floor beside him, Keith can see a network of rope, the same white and red that had been woven around the fox statues. Cut down, ends slowly unraveling. “Keith, help me out here!”

Shiro had been making for the door, still a bit winded from his previous ordeal but gaining strength with every step. Slipping under his arm, Keith offers him what support he can. Lance takes up on his other side, and the three of them step out the door and onto the porch. Rather than walk the length of it, they jump down to the ground at Lance’s instruction and move towards the pond. The closer they get, the faster Lance urges them to move. 

“You’re going to jump straight in,” he tells them. No more than the flick of a glance to each, to confirm his words had been heard, before he’s shifting his attention to the open space before him. With his other hand, the one not wrapped around Shiro, he reaches out. A pale green fire springs from his fingertips. As it catches on the air, it shifts, thinning out, like seafoam stretched along the shoreline. It settles in a floating ring over the pond’s surface, its diameter easily accommodating three adult male bodies. “Hold your breath.”

It’s the last thing Keith hears as they hit the boundary of the pond and leap into the cold water.


	5. Chapter 5

_“I thought you said he was a kitsune! What I saw happening back there. . .he looked just like the Galra clan!”_

Lance’s words dug deeper than anything Lotor had said. Keith feels them, relentless, uprooting all the facts he had thought irrefutable about himself. After diving into the pond, they had resurfaced at the edge of the lake butting up against the yōkai city Shiro (and at some point in all of this, himself) had called home. They hadn’t washed ashore near the market, though he could hear the faint sounds of it from where they had arrived. The city lights had twinkled in the distance, pulsing in the fog that had settled over the lake like some echo of a dream. Keith remembers staring at it, feeling as though he had lost any rights he had earned to walk its pathways. Lance had stood there, dripping wet, just like the rest of them, accusations lighting up his blue eyes. 

_“Here I am, shore-wrecked in my own world and now on Lotor’s radar, and for what?! For another traitor? He’s not a kitsune! Not a full one at least. . .”_

Keith hadn’t known what to say to that. Each word had simply cut open another part of him, making him recall all the insecurities of his past, of not knowing where he had come from, or where he could call home, or if he even deserved such things. Abandoned by all sides - whatever made him a fox, whoever granted him humanity. Godforsaken, he thinks that’s what they called things like himself. And no matter how good he was at whatever he did, or how pretty his face, or honest his words, he had grown up believing that nothing he did would ever bring him to a place where he could be himself. 

All of himself.

And then, Shiro spoke. 

_“I’m not a true kitsune either, Lance. The Galra have left their mark on me as well.”_

His words had sounded forlorn, despite the undeniable strength standing beneath them. They weren’t an accusation levied at Lance, nor were they some excuse for Keith to latch onto. Simple fact, as Shiro knew it to be, and in knowing that, realizing that something in him had been irretrievably lost. That the greatness he had once known, the same greatness Keith saw still recognized by the faces that lit up with hope every time Shiro walked the city streets, was nothing more than a thing of his past. Shiro had nudged him against his shoulder then, smiling with a gentleness that could break hearts (the same way any kindness shown by those who suffered could wrench one’s soul), and said it was better for them to get home than stand around there soaked. Lance had stood there, silent, but unable to stop them. 

Maybe Keith should have felt sorry for him. He knew Lance was only looking out for Shiro, and in part, himself. And what did he know of Keith? But as they walked back to Shiro’s house, he could only feel the bitterly hot stabs of anger. He just didn’t know who he was rightly angry with.

And now, he’s the one standing here, uncertain of what to say. 

They had reached the kitchen in silence. Through the window, pale light filters in, painting silver lines across the floor and counters. The laundry closet sits across from the sink, just on the other side of the table. Shiro had yet to draw back the doors, modeled in the Japanese sliding style with paper layered down over a wooden frame. Across the surface of them, a meadow is painted, with tall green grass and fireflies blinking their night calls. At the far end of it, a pavilion of dark wood. It’s towards that structure that a fox could be seen racing. Keith has always liked the image. Calming. It reminds him of the summer woods and the freedom of being that always came with running wild out there, safe under the cover of the moon.

Water still drips from his hair. His clothes, much like Shiro’s are plastered to his body. A cold second skin just waiting to be shed. Shiro has now taken up against the countertop, just in front of the window. Moonlight spills over his shoulders, and as Keith lifts his gaze to take in the entirety of him, he finds his breath stalling over his lips. 

He’s always thought Shiro handsome. Whether fox or human, he’s beautiful. But right now, with vulnerability unmasking his emotions, Keith finds his radiance heart-stopping. He shifts his weight, licks his lips, then touches the jewel within his jacket pocket. It’s no longer burning, as cool as a stone sunk beneath a mountain stream. 

“Thank you,” he manages after a moment.

Shiro blinks, then smiles again, that same soul-ache inducing smile from before. Absolving Keith of all the sins he doesn’t remember but certainly weigh on him. Otherwise, how could Lance have launched those accusations at him? With a shake of his head, Shiro pushes away from the countertop and curls his fingers beneath the hem of his shirt. Before tugging it over, he says, “You don’t need to thank me. Rather, I should be thanking you, for distracting Lotor long enough for Pidge to finish the ritual.”

The shirt is gone seconds later. Keith can’t help but stare. Not from simple attraction but for the revelation. He’s seen Shiro naked, or nearly so, before. After waking from his ordeal to this new and strange world that had some claim over him. But he doesn't remember the scars. Not this many of them. Maybe this is the unveiling of truth, Shiro unable to hide whether from the ritual itself or because he no longer cares to keep such things from Keith. Like a network of rogue constellations, the scars dot the landscape of Shiro’s torso. Some the deep pink of wounds that had taken time to heal, others thin and silvery, old injuries or the ones that had been quick to resolve. Keith’s fingers twitch, itching to trace their lines and the stories they told. Instead, he pulls off his jacket and turns to drop it over kitchen table. Shiro’s jacket lay beside it, lake water pooling on the floor beneath it. His gaze drifts over the table, then lingers over the bowl of fruit set at its center, dark-skinned plums contrasting with the polished silver. 

“What. . .was that, Shiro?” he asks quietly. 

“What was what exactly?”

Well, fair enough, Keith thinks. A lot had happened over the last few hours, though he can’t shake the idea that Shiro is making him confront his curiosity directly. Keith glances over his shoulder to find Shiro walking toward the laundry closet. Silent as always, the damp scent of the lake trailing him. He pulls open the doors, lifts the lid of the washer, and drops his shirt down into its gullet. When he turns to face Keith, it’s like staring across some wide chasm in the earth. Shiro is looking at him, but also beyond him. Searching for something, and unable to find it, picks up that same soft smile that pricks at Keith’s heart.

“I wish I could remember everything from that time,” Shiro replies. He leans back against the washing machine (still an oddity in this world, but Keith had come to learn that Shiro liked the earthly realm appliances that made his daily life easier, and that they are quite capable of running on the energy here - with a little tinkering from Hunk and Pidge that is), and grips its edge with his hands. Keith finds his heart pricked for an entirely different reason. “But I remember waking up in that same place you did when I brought you here. Allura’s palace. There are flashes of other things. I know I had gone somewhere to look for something on her orders. I don’t even remember what I was looking for. . .” He pauses, brow furrowing as the memories escape him. “When I came back from that place though, part of my soul orb was missing. Taken from me. I always feel like they had meant to take it all, but something stopped them. . .”

“Them?”

A small frown worries Shiro’s mouth. “The Galra.”

_“…he looked just like the Galra clan!_

Those words echo in his head suddenly. Keith clears his throat, then shakes his head as if to banish them. When none of that works, he reaches down and tears off his own shirt, like maybe, if he can cut himself down far enough, he can find the answers that evade him still. Just like Shiro. He stalks over to the washing machine and throws his shirt down into it. 

Standing beside him, Shiro remains silent. But when their gazes meet, Keith can see the concern there, and it makes him wonder what he had ever done to deserve such a look from such a man.

“I’m sorry,” he says, suddenly. For so much. For the things that were done that robbed Shiro of half his soul. For the gaping holes in his memory that seemed to haunt him like battleground ghosts. For not knowing enough of himself and bringing all the potential harm of that into Shiro’s life.

Something shifts in Shiro’s gaze, wounded. “You don’t need to be sorry, Keith.”

He shakes his head again. Exhaling, he spins around and sets himself up against the washer, mirroring Shiro. There are things he could say; only he doesn’t know how to say them. So, he stands there, in a silence both warm and heavy. Difficult to dispel but not goading him into speaking. After another moment, Shiro leans against him, and Keith finds himself pushing back in mutual support. There’s a chill clinging to Shiro’s skin, but at the point of contact between them, heat begins to generate, diffusing down his bicep. He imagines the same thing happening to Shiro.

Funny, how the world seems less lonely like that.

“Do you remember anything about your family?”

Keith goes to respond, only to find his lips slowly falling shut when the words fail him. Shiro’s voice held a different sort of kindness to it, one that genuinely seeks to know another person for the sake of knowing them. Maybe, even of helping them. A selfless sort of kindness. And all Keith can feel is the way his heart aches for this man in ways he told himself he would never let himself feel.

It’s always been one thing to desire someone in that purely primal need of the physical. It’s something else entirely to want to be a part of their life.

“I get flashes sometimes, but I never know if those are really my memories or just things I want to believe in because I saw some family at the park or there was a movie I fell asleep to. The only thing I really remember is being told I was never to let humans know what I was. I tried it once, you know. . .telling someone. I was just a kid, and there was this other kid I would always run into at the nearby park. He was always in this dark blue kimono. I thought we were friends. He started calling me a liar though because I kept insisting that I was right. It felt like he was denying me, but I realize now I should have just accepted what he said. When I changed in front of him, he started to cry and called me a devil. I bit him when he tried to hit me and then ran off. But when I came back to the park, there were a bunch of priests there burning something that smelled sweet.” Keith wrinkles his nose at the memory. “But it also smelled like death. I haven’t breathed a word of it since. . .until you found me.”

Shiro leans a bit more heavily against him, head bowing down close. “Do you remember how long ago that was?”

“I know I’m at least twenty-three, maybe even as old as twenty-five, in human years. My I.D. cards all say twenty-three, so that’s what I’ve gone with.”

“You have an I.D.?”

“You don’t?”

He gets a small conciliatory laugh for that. “They’re all fake.”

“So are mine.”

Keith looks over at Shiro and meets, a bit unexpectedly, a rather intense stare. The gray of his eyes is back to gleaming like moonlight, a fine silver glow to them. And there’s this smile hanging about his mouth that’s still soft but has forgone the previous melancholy kindness and instead adapted something more. . .honest. A bit of quiet wonder, like Keith is something he could treasure. He runs his tongue along his lower lip, then bites back a bit of laughter. Shiro’s smile only grows wider. His head dips a little closer. As Shiro’s shadow falls over him, Keith’s heart tumbles down into some impossibly deep hole, its beats echoing in the never-ending darkness. Just falling, falling, falling. . .

“Your eyes,” Shiro murmurs. He seems to forget himself for a moment, searching Keith’s gaze. “They’re more purple here in this world than in the human one.”

“Oh. . .”

 _Oh._ That vague, ill-defined sound that always seems to fall from lips when you're startled or pleased or some weird combination of both. Because all Keith sees at this moment is the way Shiro’s mouth curves. How his lips part. And how he might kiss them.

Shiro stumbles over himself at that moment, having overestimated how close he was leaning, and catches himself on Keith. Somewhere in the mix, their foreheads had bumped, and lips had barely brushed, and Keith had tasted the laugh that spelled out Shiro’s embarrassment in the sweetest of ways. 

“They’re umm. . .they’re beautiful is all I wanted to say,” Shiro amends as he straightens himself up. He’s still looking at Keith though, a bit bewildered, or maybe just thoroughly enchanted.

“So are you.”

Like the _oh_ from before, those words had dropped from Keith’s mouth like a perfectly ripe apple from the tree. Lured by the heavy pull that all honest moments seem to carry. He doesn’t know which of them flushes deeper, but he can see the red suffuse across Shiro’s cheeks as surely as he can feel it heating up his own.

“We should. . .change. The clothes. . .they’re wet,” Shiro stammers. But there’s this smile now, bright and gorgeous and everything that makes life worth living, lighting up Shiro’s face. As if in defiance of his recent ineptitude. 

The perfectly imperfect.

*

Two weeks without further incident. Mostly no incidents. Three days after arriving back at Shiro’s house, a crow had alighted on the back gate and perched there, cawing until Shiro woke up to see what had brought it there. Keith had followed after hearing Shiro trudge down the steps, sleep heavy after another night spent trying to mold his foxfire into various shapes and sizes. Since their run-in with Lotor, his attempts had produced mediocre results at best and had left various objects around the house singed at their worst. Shiro only encouraged him as he could, saying nothing of the wavering flames or the odd purple tint that infiltrated them at times. As for the crow that morning, it was nothing like the birds that plagued that trash yards in the earthly realm. Though still defined by the sleek blue-black feathers and strangely intelligent gaze, it was several times the size of any crow Keith had known. It had a third leg tucked in between the other two ‘normal’ limbs (Keith assumed them to be the ‘normal’ set-up based on how they balanced out the bird, the third seemingly misplaced, like the gods had one too many limbs and simply attached it figuring no harm in the matter). Around its neck, a golden thread, neatly knotted where a small amulet hung in the shape of a star.

As Shiro approached, it cawed again. Then, having been seen, it took off. No note. No words. Not even a message scrawled across the air or a misplaced feather. Shiro had simply stared after it and said that Allura would be coming at some point in time. Likely to discussed what had transpired at the shrine.

Ten more days passed before Allura actually came to call on Shiro at his house. In that timeframe, Keith learned a variety of things. As if Shiro had suddenly opened up to him, like a flower unfurling before moonlight. He now knew how Shiro preferred his morning tea to be brewed (five minutes, perfectly black) and his eggs to be cooked (scrambled hard with black pepper). The tasks that Shiro had once done for himself around the house, Keith was now invited to partake in: sweeping the floors, setting the laundry out to dry, folding the laundry, putting said laundry in Shiro’s room (which required him stepping foot inside, a first for him in all his time living with him). His favorite things, however, were standing beside Shiro in the kitchen as he helped him prep the various ingredients for their meals and tending to the garden outside. Shiro grew a variety of herbs there in addition to the flowers, all essentially left to run wild, though carefully trimmed when needed. A fully functioning sort of chaos. Before this, Shiro had always politely declined any offers Keith had made to help and only asked that he keep his room neat. Which Keith did unerringly. Now, it’s as though Keith had been invited into the storm of a lived-in life, allowed to finally place his marks upon the house (singe-signs not included though inevitably made). The start of something permanent. 

By the time Allura arrived, Keith had a blanket of his own choosing over the couch, dragged down from the closet in his room no less. It had been a perfectly good waste of a fur, and he was inclined to sleep on it in his fox form, joined at times, by Shiro. He also had his own teacup, bought down at the market on their first trip back. A deep black painted over its outside, while the inside burned a sun-fury red.

He’s drinking from it now, with Allura seated across from him on the couch. In the chair set beside his, Shiro sips from his cup. Allura has yet to touch her brew, but Keith had gotten the distinct impression that it had been nothing more than an offering and is generally expected to remain untouched. 

“I trust you’ve recovered from your ordeal.”

It’s not so much a question as it is a statement. One Allura is anticipating a full _yes_ in answer to, as though what’s to come after hinges on that particular response.

Shiro nods to her. “About as good as I can be given the circumstances.”

The corner of Keith’s mouth twitches at that reply. The few months he’s spent with Shiro have endeared his sense of humor to him. As if Shiro had been beleaguered by Death for so long the two had become fast friends. Just a touch sardonic, yet always propped up by a worn smile that seemed to welcome the worst of the world because he had already seen it, time and time again, and it no longer carried the same shock. 

“Wonderful!” She sounds genuinely pleased by that. Keith supposes that if Shiro is immune to Death’s catcalls, then Allura had built up immunity to his particular brand of humor. “Then, as I’m sure you have guessed already, I have come here with something in mind for you. A few things, actually, and they involve you both.”

Shiro lifts his eyebrows at her, intrigued, and sits back in his chair. For his part, curiosity has Keith scooting to the front of his seat. It’s the first time he’s been formally addressed for anything concerning celestial matters. She glances from one to the other, pulls her shoulders back, and sets upon them both with a diplomatic smile. 

“The first involves a little trip to the Sleepless District. Shiro, this is mostly for you, but Keith, I believe you’ll find it informative as well.”

Surprise, not of the pleasant variety, flits across Shiro’s face. “What could I possibly have to do there?”

“I’ve arranged a meeting for you with Thace and Ulaz at the Cat’s Tongue Parlor.”

Keith takes in the information like a man about to witness a murder. Or so he’s convinced himself. Whether or not the murder happens remains to be seen, but it leaves him with his brow furrowed and his hands gripping his teacup a bit tighter than necessary. 

“What’s this Sleepless District? And the Parlor? And who are Thace and Ulaz?” 

The questions leap from his mouth, demanding to be answered. Allura draws back as if scalded by his words, and the affront (or perhaps just the sheer audacity) of it colors her cheeks red. For several moments, she doesn’t meet his gaze. Shiro clears his throat.

“You’ll understand about the district when I take you there,” Shiro says. It’s evident he’s cleaning up whatever mess Keith had unknowingly made. “And as for Thace and Ulaz, they’re Galra. They parted ways with Zarkon centuries ago, though they remain members of the clan.”

“How can they still be part of something they turned their back on?”

Allura continues to hold her silence, though the flush over her cheeks slowly begins to dwindle. She seems no more willing to talk on the subject than before, however, and so, Keith twists in his chair and waits expectantly for Shiro to answer. Which he does, with an apologetic shrug to Allura.

“It’s difficult to leave a clan once you’ve pledged yourself to it, Keith. Especially if you still hold out hope for it. Just know that they aren’t our enemies, but rather, are trying to help us keep their clan’s ambitions in check.”

He huffs out at that, realizing he’s going to get no further information. Whatever Shiro understood of the situation, the very nature of it, isn’t something he seems willing to expound upon here. If it had something to do with Allura’s presence, Keith wouldn’t have been surprised. But why she would arrange something so apparently clandestine she wouldn’t speak on it herself to any real degree baffles him. Infuriates would have been the better term, but he quickly doused that flame before it could overtake his better sensibilities. 

Patience, as Shiro would say.

“The second thing, Allura?” 

“Ah, yes!” Her previous indignation has dissipated, leaving her smiling once more. She claps her hands before her and edges towards the end of the couch. “You still have the fire jewel I take it?”

“Kasai?” 

“What other jewel would I be talking about, Shiro?” Even so, she laughs, and all Keith can think is that this must be how the stars would sound if they could voice their own amusement. She beckons with her fingers, indicating for Keith to come closer. He merely sits, though, blinking in his confusion. “Well, stand up already! This isn’t going to work without you.”

“I don’t. . .”

“Keith, listen to her,” Shiro says. Not quite a command, but the firm prodding of a mentor. He then rises from his chair, teacup set delicately on the black glass top of the coffee table, and makes for the far corner of the room. Nestled amongst a row of books (full of various myths and fairy tales, though there were several on the wars that had plagued humankind) is a small onyx box with an inlay of fluorite. The stones had been carved into a pattern reminiscent of Shiro’s nine tails, if all tails had been fully materialized. After returning from the shrine, Shiro had placed it there for safekeeping. He hands the box over to Allura. 

It’s not until she has taken the red orb out of its silk satchel and holds it out to him that Keith finally stands up. Without warning, his fox ears pop into being only to lay out flat against his head. 

“You needn’t worry, Keith. I only wish to hide this somewhere a bit safer.”

Inherently, Keith understands the unsaid in that statement. That Shiro is not yet strong enough to keep it from the hands that would seek to steal it. He doesn’t know if he would be any better though.

“I’m not capable of -”

She holds out her other hand to stop him. “In some respects, I am entrusting this to you, but you are not to be its keeper. That kimono of yours is.”

Since coming to this realm, Keith had come to the conclusion that there are things he isn’t going to comprehend. At least, not for a very long time. Like trying to explain quantum physics to a first-year science student or the intricacies of sugar art to someone who thought Hershey’s chocolate the pinnacle of desserts. He merely lacked the proper base to support a full understanding of the world and all its various workings. Even if Shiro did acknowledge he was learning quickly.

“Shiro, did you not tell him?”

“He knows a little of it, but not the details of his particular one.”

Allura gives a soft _tut_ with her tongue, though Shiro hardly looks chastised by it. She motions again for Keith to step over to her. 

“There was a heavenly flame that used to light the way for the gods,” she explains. Her expression grows softer with each word until there is nothing but fondness conveyed by her tone. “It burned when we needed it the most, lighting up the dark. For us, for the humans. A holy fire that rather than turn itself towards destruction gave itself over to good. Slowly though, over centuries and centuries, as humanity turned more towards devastation and the gods began to lament helping them at all, its light began to dim. Then, on the eve of the first war of this realm, it started flickering, in and out of existence. The gods had begun to wonder if a holy flame was not worth using on their enemies. . .the flame turned to the stars then, its fellow companions of the dark, and asked for death rather than see itself used to create tragedy.”

The sadness in her voice is almost unbearable. Heavy with love, still touched by grief. She reaches out then and runs her fingers down over his knee. And Keith feels it, the warmth that sparks over his skin, a fire’s song of recognition. 

“Will you keep it for me, old friend?” Allura asks quietly. “Just until things have settled.”

Color bursts over the fabric, sunlit oranges and yellows crowding out the deeper reds. She chuckles at the response. Joy sweeps through Keith’s body, but it’s not his. He knows this just as he knows the sun does not set simply because a soul finds itself miserable. 

“Kasai has the power to burn down the world,” Allura says, speaking now to Keith. “These jewels were created by us gods as a means to control the various elements of the world. All those harsh winters that beset foreign armies, or hurricanes that drowned enemy ships. . .beneficial to some, absolute devastation to others. People prayed, and the gods answered, and now they are left with these tokens of past regrets.” 

She holds the jewel against the edge of his kimono. Keith can only watch as the fabric burns around it, slowly accepting the orb into itself. Melted down inch by inch until it’s completely consumed. A wave of red flame swallows up the last of its form, but he merely feels a vague heat across his skin. There, then gone. What burns through him, hot and unrelenting, is Allura’s gaze.

“The Galra cannot have them.”

*

The Cat’s Tongue Parlor.

It’s not what Keith had expected. Then again, he hadn’t known what to expect of it or the Sleepless District in general, but Shiro had been right. The moment he laid eyes on it, Keith immediately understood why a goddess might find herself averse to talking of such subjects. And why the task of meeting here, of all places, had been left to the likes of Shiro rather than undertaken by one of the heavenly corps. 

Haven of sin and all degenerative delights. The Sleepless District. 

Every yōkai town had one, but to find The Cat’s Tongue Parlor, they had to travel several towns over. A journey that would have taken them three days on foot. However, with Shiro’s ability to connect space (something, Keith had learned that morning, one gained after earning his second fox tail, which typically came after two hundred years of existence as a kitsune), had been as simple as opening the door to one room and stepping into the next. There were some caveats to this method of travel: you or a traveling companion had to be familiar with the location you were heading to (an address would do for most), shrines and other holy grounds could not be trespassed upon, and each fox had their own signature code for opening a portal, which meant the gods could tell who had been where. All yokai had the ability to travel between the unearthly and earthly realms, and each had its stipulations for use, such as Lance needing water as a conduit. The kitsune simply required their fire and a few hundred years of street cred as far as Keith surmised. He had found his fire. Before they had left that afternoon, Shiro had assured him the rest would come with time.

Standing before him is a bridge, spanning the length of a river that rushes underneath. Its wooden frame has been painted a deep red, that sort that beckons one into pleasure. On either side, tall, thin lamp posts emit light too bright for a simple flame. Similar to the gates of Heaven, wrapped in gold and banishing all traces of shadow. . .or so that must be how some would see this entry into the Sleepless District. Beyond this, a wide avenue with carefully placed stones, shimmering like pavement after a hard rain, and lined with weeping cherry trees in full bloom. Various yōkai drift over the street, moving from one building to another. Keith notices the way they are all dressed here is nothing like back home, what he sees in the market or those going about their day-to-day existences. Here there’s a sea of vibrantly colored kimono, some with detailed scenes embroidered into their sleeves and bottom hems, others with nature motifs. A kaleidoscopic view, ever changing, always fascinating. And each of them in their yōkai forms - those transmuted human forms, some with horns or beaks, others with ears and tails, even a few with scaled skin and claws. 

Keith had always wondered about that. Why, if each yōkai had its own _true_ form would they have adopted walking, talking, existing just like human beings. As if humanity is the real pinnacle of existence, beyond even the gods. Or maybe, simply, just more reachable than the good and godly. He can’t deny that he’s enjoyed his own time as a human. Parts of it. There’s something almost divine about the way they go about their lives, struggling to be better, some reveling in their worst, but always as a species, trying to push forward against all the boundaries of the world, of life, of the ‘mere mortal’ existence. Maybe that’s their own reach for godliness. What Keith had enjoyed the most, though, was experiencing the same space from wildly different perspectives. The forest never looked the same to him as a human as it did to a fox.

“I still have questions about this kimono.” 

They’re halfway across the bridge when those words break his awe-induced silence. 

“What questions would that be, Keith?”

Shiro pauses before they reach the official _unofficial_ start of the Sleepless District. Strung between the first of the buildings, and carrying on down the avenue, are a series of intermittently spaced red lanterns. Strung being a bit of an operative term, as Keith has yet to see any actual rope or other such implements capable of holding them in place. They hover in the air, throwing pink-infused light down over the street below. 

“Why did she entrust such a thing to me?”

The thought had been bothering him for a while now. Since he first received it, if he's being honest, but after the more recent revelations as to its history, had shown itself to be a fate negated. Or perhaps renegotiated. Keith’s not entirely sure what had happened only that this fabric now wrapped around him had a life and a will of its own, and that somehow, it had chosen him.

“I don’t know why that particular one,” Shiro admits, folding his arms across his chest. He’s wearing his kimono as well, albeit a bit. . .differently. A little more chest exposed, a little less modesty. In perfect keeping with the apparent fashion of this district. He’d even slicked back his hair, making his fox ears seem all the larger for it. “But the fact that it didn’t lose its color the moment you touched it meant it was willing to align itself with you.”

Keith’s lips press together as he digests that bit of information. Somewhere above them, laughter rings out clear as a morning bell. “So, what is it exactly? A yōkai?”

“No, not quite. More like a blessed garment. Not just anyone can wear one you know.”

“Do you?”

“How do you think I manage a tail without one?”

Silence settles heavily over Keith’s tongue. He can feel his eyes narrow, however, calling Shiro out for the touch of amusement that had been in his tone. The laughter is there, just waiting for Keith to say something and set it free. So, he says nothing.

“Have you ever found an opening in it for your tail?”

Shiro seems a little more earnest in that one. 

“Does it. . .make one?” Keith asks after a moment of considering the worth of asking. 

Shiro’s laughter finally breaks loose. Gentle and kind. Still fully capable of making Keith flush. “They’re rather accommodating of us, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” he mutters.

With a shake of his head, Shiro turns to gaze out over the main avenue. Keith follows suit and realizes that rather than a thoroughfare, it’s more like a large open courtyard. Buildings rise up on either side, two stories tall, and all have balconies attached to their upper floors overlooking the inner square. Moonlight slides down the sloping roofs, painting the golden tiles with a silver sheen. Voices overflow from each building. Never any shouting. Just laughter, conversations, raucous singing at times to the accompaniment of some stringed instrument, and always calls for more liquor. 

The building to his immediate left has all the makings of a typical izakaya. Its ground floor is open-air, offering an unobstructed view of the patrons inside, crowding around tables, while frog-like waiters scurry from each with cups empty and full. Smaller red lanterns line the second story walkway, hanging from the bottom and swaying in the slight breeze. Shiro doesn’t direct him towards that one but rather to the building across from it. A small canal runs the length of the buildings on either side, and within the waters, Keith notes again the glowing lights darting back and forth. For a moment, he thinks that maybe those are the things the creatures of the depths wish upon as they gaze up at the surface. 

Scrawled in purple flame over the main doorway is _The Cat’s Tongue Parlor_. There’s a small bridge, similar in style to the first one they had crossed, arching over the canal to get to the entrance. The letters burn but give no heat as they pass beneath them. 

“Antok,” Shiro greets as they approach. His smile is friendly enough. 

Keith can’t say the same for this. . .Antok. He’s a hulk of a creature, nearly twice the size of Shiro. A pair of cat’s ears perk up at his name, and after another moment, there’s a flick of his tails. Two in total. 

Another nekomata. 

On the other side the door stands a second, or what Keith assumes is, bouncer of sorts. He’s been to enough places like it in the human world to know the set-up when he sees it. This is a red-light district, and these two beings are the enforcers of order (or just owner whims). They both wear kabuki-inspired cat masks, the white a stark contrast to the black of their yukata and violet fur. Unlike, Antok, however, this individual has a tail like a lizard’s, with his fur shorter and mimicking the scales of an alligator in its pattern. 

“Is Kolivan in today?”

Antok shakes his head. 

“I figured as much but had to ask,” Shiro says. “Ulaz and Thace?”

Unraveling his arms from across his chest, Antok points upward with his index finger. Keith doesn’t miss the wicked curve of a nail at the end of it. 

“Appreciate it!” Shiro claps Keith on the back, encouraging him to step through the doorway before him. 

And it’s precisely that. A doorway, leaving the establishment open to the streets like every other building in the district it would seem. Just a glimpse inside another world, offering a taste without laying out the prices. But, for many, the sight alone is enough to negate the idea of cost. Temptation has always been like that, the greatest sleight of hand in the books, making you forget that all things have a price, and not all prices can be paid. 

The world inside The Cat’s Tongue Parlor is something Keith has only ever seen imagined in movies. Looking at it from the outside, it appears a compact building, pretty enough, but hardly expansive. Once inside, however, it’s like a carpet unrolling, and with each inch exposed, showcasing all the intricacies that beauty can hold. The walls of the foyer are painted a deep violet, with shadows nearly staining the color black in all the small alcoves and private sitting areas nestled further in. From the entrance, Keith can see a staircase leading upstairs in the back right corner, ensuring there is only one way up or down, which in turn makes escape a rather difficult venture. Several more yukata-clad guards are stationed about the main room. Almost missable amidst all the action, the flurry of movement and the sing-song of laughter and promises being made. 

Which brings Keith to the. . .trade. He doesn’t know if this is meant to be more like the traditional houses, where entertainment is the true commodity and _companionship_ offered only for the right sum. But the girls (if he’s to call them that) are stunning and strange. They’re all dressed in elaborate kimono, but like Shiro, seem to have shrugged off the modest portion of such dress. Fabric drips over shoulders, exposing intricately painted designs across their skin. Deep jewels tones swish about legs in a way that leaves plenty of room for dreams to creep beneath the folds of silk. Ornaments, tucked delicately into coils of hair, chime, mimicking their owner's delighted giggles. It’s not simply a variety of color, but a range of yōkai as well. Keith can see those like Lance, mermaids with their vials of water sparkling about their necks and delicately scaled skin; bakeneko, which he had come to recognize for their single tails and slitted pupils; tanuki with their round ears and panda-like markings, dark stamps of color around their eyes and staining their lips. 

Several of the girls squeal at the sight of Shiro and rush over to him. They take no time at all in attempting to dismantle Keith of all information as well, cooing over the red of his tail and asking about _experiences_. Or namely, if he would like to add to them. Shiro takes it all with grace, smiling at them generously while shrugging over at Keith.

“Ladies, I think you’re going to scare Keith here. It’s his first time, and I’m afraid we’ve come on a bit of business.” 

Shiro seems to have made a fine art of apologizing without actually being sorry for what he’s saying. Perhaps because he’s only speaking the truth. Maybe due to his amusement over Keith’s predicament, namely the spectacle he must be making of himself with his tail fluffed up in distress (he’s never been one for touching, and yet there are fingers drifting all over him, like the caress of seaweed in the ocean, seemingly harmless but should you get tangled while under. . .) and ears pressed flat back. 

Several of them begin to pout. And just like Shiro’s previous apology, Keith recognizes they’re not genuinely upset by the matter. All of it part of the play, and each having their expected parts to fulfill. They leave only after Shiro has promised to return, with Keith in tow, to experience all the best The Cat’s Tongue has to offer them.

“Do you come here often?” Keith couldn’t stop himself from that asking any more than the sun could keep from sharing its light with the moon. Does the idea of that bother him? Is he jealous? All questions Keith should be asking himself as well but has decided not to.

Because he already knows the answers.

Shiro shrugs again as they start up the stairs. “I wouldn’t say often. Mostly because of work, but to maintain ties with places like these, sometimes you have to be a patron.”

“And Allura can’t help with that?”

Did that come out a bit bitter?

“Just as there are places we can’t tread as yōkai, there are places here the gods can’t go. Well, it’s more like they elect not to go if they can help it.”

“Are they that bad?”

“No. There’s nothing really bad here, except perhaps that yōkai energy tends to be stronger in places like this.”

“Why?”

Pausing at the top step, Shiro glances down at Keith. For a moment, he simply studies him, their eyes meeting as Shiro begins to speak. “Because just like humans, yōkai can forget themselves here. It’s a place where old memories are either banished or relived, whichever someone is seeking to do, and that creates its own sort of energy. Everything comes to life in these places, meaning the best and worst of things.”

It makes sense. Places like these are built on the foundation of dreams, and dreams carried just enough of reality, both the best and the worst, to make them feel real. Humans went to them for a variety of reasons, spurred by those very notions. A place to become something more or less than whatever they currently are. It seems yōkai are no different. Perhaps it isn’t the fear of sullying themselves that keeps the gods from places like this. 

At the top of the stairs, a hallway branches off to both sides. Lining it at varying intervals are sliding doors, and unlike the downstairs with its open floor plan, nooks exposed to the general room, everything remains closed off here. He follows Shiro as he heads to the left. With every step, the hallway grows darker. The muted sounds of instruments can be heard floating from some of the rooms. Others betrayed by whispers of conversation, though Keith can’t make out any definable words. At the end of the hall, the path veers off to the left again, continuing on with the circuitous route around the upper floor. Shiro stops them before the only sliding door on the right-hand side. He raps his knuckles against the wood, then enters a few seconds later.

It’s a spacious room, encompassing the entirety of the hallway's length. There’s another room at the opposite end, with its door open. Keith can barely make out a desk inside of it, but that’s not the most noteworthy aspect of the room. Rather, it’s the low-set table, its legs ending in tiger’s paws, and the occupants of said table that remind Keith there are other powers in this world outside of Shiro.

“Thace, Ulaz.”

After sliding the door shut behind him, Shiro then bows his head to each in turn, Keith’s gaze following suit. Thace is the larger of the two, though how tall he might be would be difficult to say considering both men are seated at the table. But his shoulders are broad, his hands big, fingers tipped with the same sickle-sharp nails as Antok’s had been. His fur is thicker and slightly longer than that coating Ulaz, who reminds Keith of a Sphinx cat, thinner, smoother, sharp-angled face and a gaze that seem to stare into the very depths of the universe. Thace’s fur grows in tufts around his face, giving him the appearance of having a carefully trimmed beard. Both have the piercing yellow eyes of a nekomata.

“Welcome, Shiro.”

Thace’s voice is deep, conjuring up images of the very heart of the woods in Keith’s mind. Something ancient, but full of life. The place they all come from, yet all too often forget. It puts him at ease.

“It’s been too long, friend,” Ulaz says with a smile. “And this one here? He’s the one you were telling us about?”

Avid interest animates Ulaz’s face. He had seemed almost clinical on first inspection, especially compared to Thace, but as he watches them now, Keith sees that the opposite is, in fact, the truth. It’s Thace who holds himself more tightly reined in. Ulaz, however, seems enlivened with the desire to act, to categorize this new information presented to him and apply it to the universe at large around him. And yet both sit there, as composed as a bodhisattva. If not for their expressions, Keith might have considered each unmovable. 

“Yes, this is Keith. He’s the one I found out in the forest all those months ago,” Shiro replies, unable, it seems, to keep from smiling himself. 

“Come, sit. Both of you. . .we have much to discuss.” Thace gestures to the open spaces across from them. 

A carafe, half-filled, sits at the center of the table. With a single whiff, Keith can already tell its contents: fox nip wine. They came prepared. Or this is simply part of basic hospitality. Along with the wine, there are several platters, a deep plum in color with gold paw prints traipsing across their surface, each offering a variety of foods from candied fruits to small skewers of roasted meat. Keith adamantly denies the first of his hunger pangs. Breakfast felt like days ago. 

Shiro seats himself, folding his legs and tugging at his kimono to accommodate this new position. The whole of it exposes his chest even further, and Keith has to take a minute to settle the complaints of another sort of hunger. What he notices, in his wild scan around the room, is that Thace and Ulaz are similarly clothed. Their kimonos create a deep tapering V-line down their chests, and unlike the cottony material of the guards, are made of black silk interwoven with lavender. The effect of it being that every time they shift their bodies, color ripples over the garment like the flicker of scale beneath a lake’s placid surface. 

“The ones downstairs. . .” Keith begins as he takes a seat beside Shiro.

“Are you worried for them?” Thace asks. Benevolence works through his words, softening his tone. It even reaches his eyes. An impossible feat for something so aligned with the apparent evils of this world.

Taken off guard by that, Keith’s mouth pulls to a thin line. Reluctant to answer.

“There is no one here who has not sought us out of their own will. And those who stayed provide more service than you currently seem to conceive of at this moment. They are quite capable of handling themselves.”

“This is a brothel, isn’t it?”

“Keith -”

Ulaz puts his hand up, stopping Shiro’s admonishment in its tracks. “Those who are here are adept at any number of things. They hold lively conversations, play card games, sing, dance, and if needed, dispatch of those who would bring more harm than good to any of the realms.”

Surprise silences him. He blinks, uncertain he had heard the nekomata correctly, but with a single glance around, Keith is assured that he hadn’t. Not whores, but - “Assassins?”

“The Cat’s Tongue Parlor is more than just a mere _brothel_ , as you so plainly put it, Keith.” Amusement slips into Ulaz’s expression, turning the left corner of his mouth just barely upward. 

“Thace and Ulaz were once part of an elite unit for the Galra called the Blades,” Shiro explains. “Zarkon thought them disbanded after they betrayed his ambitions several centuries ago. But, they’ve been working here, in the shadows, to help preserve peace as much as possible in this realm.”

“We are Blades still, as is every other Galra that works under our roof. We have not forgotten our oath to see our clan united and strong. However, Zarkon’s ambitions, as fed to him by the witch, became as detrimental to us as it did to so many others. We cannot stand by and allow for it. Not just for our sakes, but for the two realms,” Thace follows up. 

Something writhes about in Keith’s mind, a familiarity that won’t allows itself to be ignored. He shifts, crossing one ankle over the other, and pulls at the hem of his kimono. As if by tugging on it he might just tug free the idea forming in his mind. With a frown worrying his lips, he looks first to Shiro, and seeing the unerring support offered by his gaze, turns to Ulaz and Thace. “Lotor talked about a witch as well. . .”

They both nod at that. As Ulaz sets to pouring the fox wine into awaiting cups, preparing them for a long night it would seem, Thace picks up the story.

“She goes by many names. Lotor prefers the term witch, and it seems to have stuck for the general populace, as he is quite popular with the crowds in this world. Others call her priestess, and there are a few who even refuse to name her in any capacity. But we were there when she first came to the Galra clan, and at that time, she was simply known as Honerva.”

“The goddess?” Shiro exclaims. His brow draws together, lips soon after. “That can’t be. . .Allura has said nothing of this.”

“The gods do like to keep their affairs private. You of all people should know this, Shiro,” Ulaz says with a patience that speaks of years spent learning it. “I assure you it was she. Or should you like, she at least bore the name of the goddess. She was a far more radiant being back then the one you encountered.”

A glimpse of something dark, a memory or a singular thought, cuts through Shiro’s gaze at the mention of that. Keith finds his confusion at that moment as debilitating as if his heart had simply refused to beat for fear of further pain. He sucks in a breath, earning him a look of concern from Shiro, and finds that the darkness haunting his eyes had gone. Banished, it seems, by the care he felt for someone else.

Keith doesn’t dare place his hopes on that, but his heart finds its rhythm once again. 

“This is why we had sent word to Allura, and why she, in turn, had asked you to meet with us,” Thace continues. “We’ve heard talk from the various corners of the land that the Galra are on the move, but not as one cohesive unit.”

“What do you mean by that?” 

Keith’s ears perk up at the strange note in Shiro’s voice. A touch of old fear, the sort that carves deep into the earth of memory, forever changing the landscape of one’s mind. His tail gives a single flick, then resettles closer to Shiro’s. Doing, perhaps, what his fingers desperately wish to do but he won’t allow. Not in front of these two, no matter how trustworthy they are. Yet, it’s Shiro, who seconds later glances over at him and smiles like he had read the intention as clearly as if it had been scribbled in his own handwriting across the table. Fingertips brush against Keith’s knuckles as Shiro brings his hand to rest on the table.

Plucking a piece of fruit from one of the platters, Ulaz looks from one to the other, then finally over at Thace. Perhaps the gesture hadn’t gone unnoticed, which stirs unease in his gut like a pit of cobras agitated by a prodding stick, but there’s nothing to be done about it. And as it stands, something almost like fondness crinkles the corner of Ulaz’s eyes. He pops the piece of fruit into his mouth and gestures for Keith to help himself. 

“Lotor has always stood at odds with his father’s faction, headed now by Sendak.” Thace rolls his shoulders as a frown tugs at his lips. The thought, or its ensuing line, apparently of the more disturbing variety. “We believe he has taken up the witch’s cause.”

“What cause is that?” Keith asks as he helps himself to the same platter as Ulaz. He’s not prepared for the initial hit of sour over his tongue, lips puckering until soothed by the following release of sweetness.

Across from him, neither Thace nor Ulaz bothers to disguise their amusement. 

“A crusade, thinly veiled as championing for a ruling class of yōkai to bring order and stability to this realm, while at the heart of the matter, she is merely consumed with the idea of immortality.”

“I thought the gods were already immortal,” Keith answers, lips still tingling from the tartness. 

“It is not for the gods, though perhaps in some ways, it is a means to undoing the bindings placed upon her by her fellows. Rather, this comes from watching human heroes fall, time and again, no matter who championed their cause. Most all, including humans themselves, have accepted this as their inevitable fate. She, however, did not see the fairness in it all,” Ulaz says, quiet, rhythmic. A tale relayed with all the grace of a storyteller. He takes another piece of fruit, pausing to chew it thoughtfully, before continuing. “Why should yōkai live near endless lives, and the gods hold to their immortality, while the human race is doomed to mere seconds of existence?”

Again, unease unravels in his gut. As much as Keith would like to chalk it up to the soured-sweetness of the fruit, he knows no good would come of lying to himself. And maybe that’s what it is, the falling apart of something he had held so tightly bound for fear of what it would reveal.

“How long do yōkai live anyway? Shiro, you said you’ve been alive over sixteen-hundred years. . .”

“A few decades over that,” Shiro confirms. “Every yōkai is different. . .”

“Those who spend their time here in the unearthly realm have a better idea of their timelines. But there are others who spend more time in the earthly realm, and easily forget their own existences.”

Keith looks to Ulaz, who has pinned him with a stare both frightening and hypnotizing. He wants to tear his gaze away from it, but the open honesty within his eyes holds his attention like a snare around the foot. The more he struggles, the deeper he falls into its grasp.

“How can someone forget their own age?”

Ulaz smiles then, mysterious. As if giving Keith a glimpse into a secret he could only comprehend much later. “For creatures like us, those who can shift between forms, we can lose ourselves to our other lives. Many forest guardians fall prey to this, but there are other yōkai who shift, hoping to lose themselves, or who simply spend too much time until time itself is forgotten to them.”

Keith feels himself squirm, feels the way his lips contort as he battles for the words to say. “How do they remember again?”

“Something sparks the memory in them, of who they really are. But even then they may not recount how many years have passed until something else helps them place their prior memories.”

“You mean like looking at an old photograph of something? Or maybe meeting another yōkai who knew you before?”

With a nod, Ulaz replies, “Yes. Things of this nature may help those who were lost.”

Silence settles in over them. Beside him, Shiro’s tail moves in closer to his own, overlapping it. Only then does Keith find himself able to look away from Ulaz’s stare. He clears his throat, then takes up his glass of wine. 

“The witch then. You said she’s likely aiding Sendak’s forces. What of Lotor?” Shiro breaks in, gently though, as if aware of the shift inside of Keith. Not so delicate as to be afraid of trespassing somewhere he shouldn’t by continuing the conversation, but rather, easing Keith back into the current moment. 

Thace, who had spent the last minute examining the contents of his own cup, addresses that. Between the two, he reminds Keith of a military general, well versed in the matters of the field, and the idea that the Galra lack a leader like him is one that should be grieved. He can only imagine the situation being infinitely better if a man like Thace were the one in charge, or at least, had the ear of those who were. 

“It’s our understanding that a power struggle of sorts has been playing out between the two over the last decade. Lotor, as you know, favors more subversive methods of gaining control. Love over fear, but a love that cannot be questioned proves itself as destructive as fear in the end. Sendak. . .”

“Prefers the violence of the old days,” Shiro finishes. That darkness spills into his gaze once more, lingering in a way that makes Keith reach out and brush his fingers against Shiro’s thigh. When their eyes meet, it’s like smoke clearing from the skies, leaving behind only the brilliance of moonlight over a night-soaked land.

“He is of a bygone era,” Thace laments. “Though there are many yōkai who thrive on fear, there is still a balance that must be kept. Too much of it dulls the world.”

“What about the jewels? Lotor said the witch was looking for these jewels.” The memory sparks, as bright as day. Keith wets his lips and looks over at the two Blades, hoping for an answer. Something more than Allura had been willing to give.

He finds them more than apt to the task. 

“Ah, back to why we have called you here. Those jewels are capable of inflicting great harm upon the world, but they require a catalyst, so to speak.” Ulaz tosses a look to Thace, who receives it with a grimace. He continues after another moment, a sip of wine taken. Perhaps needed to loosen his words. “We’ve heard some disturbing things coming from Sendak’s camp. There’s talk of a hooded figure who plays upon a lute. The music is said to enchant those who are susceptible to its song.”

Next to him, Shiro’s back stiffens, vertebra by vertebra, until the tension has claimed even his tail. Keith can feel it, like a rod to the hand. His fingers curl against the tatami mat beneath him.

“We believe this to be the Great Goddess’ lute.” Thace leaves the statement there, too heavy to bear any further, too tired to move beyond it.

Shiro leans, a mere fraction of an inch, toward the table. “Not even the gods are aware of the location of that lute. It’s been lost for centuries.”

“Yes, supposedly when the Great Goddess herself went missing. But it’s the only explanation for their desire to have the jewels. Without the lute, one cannot use their power to influence the world. And with the right sort of energy, one can also command others of this realm who are susceptible to its music.”

Ulaz tips his head towards Thace, as if acknowledging his words for the irrefutable truth they hold. “And it would explain why Lotor is keen to find them before the witch does.”

“Only a celestial can play the lute,” Shiro murmurs, a far-off quality to his voice. Like he’s been caught stepping halfway into a dream and has no desire to turn back to reality.

It frightens him more than the tension that had bound Shiro’s body up as tight as a noose fulfilling its duty. To watch as Shiro goes someplace Keith isn’t certain he can tread. . .but more than that, doesn’t know that he can call him back from it. He reaches over, setting his hand firmly on Shiro’s thigh this time, and exhales as the distance closes itself up in his eyes. He turns to look at Keith, this watery smile on his lips, the feeling behind it so transparent Keith can hardly guess as to its nature. But he can feel the kindness of all that Shiro ultimately is. It’ll have to be enough for now.

When he looks across the table, Ulaz offers him a wan smile. There is nothing he or Thace could say to deny Shiro’s words. That’s the impression he’s left with.

“We still don’t know where the lute is being kept. Allura wishes for us to make that a priority. . .” Thace pauses, the thought unfinished.

Ulaz picks it up with a quiet clearing of his throat. “But we believe the Galra will make a move before we can locate it. Sendak is eager to reclaim some of his forces. He’s already reignited the idea of the Night Parade among several of the clans across this world. While not many at the moment, in the grand scheme of those who reside here, just as when a fire lights in a forest, it will only spread as it gains power. Nations have burned for want of good leaders.”

No sooner had Ulaz finished does a low rumble filter up from Thace’s chest. A hollow wooden sound calls out from the doorway. Another moment of silence, though Keith picks up on movement slipping through the room, something jumping from shadow pool to shadow pool, skirting the areas illuminated by the lanterns set about the perimeter. It evaporates several seconds later. Behind them, the door slides open. Standing just outside is one of the Galra, dressed like the others in a black yukata, the cat-mask affixed to his face. In his hands, a letter.

No motion is made towards Shiro or Keith, though Keith feels the heavy press of a gaze running over them as they’re passed by. Sized up. That’s what it had felt like, and it sets the hair rising on the back of his neck. Shiro’s tail flicks, distracting Keith. Whether on purpose or not, he can’t tell for Shiro merely sips from his cup, careful not to act too interested in the exchange between the Blades across from him. The letter is handed over without a word, however. And in the same silence that had brought the bakeneko (one tail, Keith had noted, and the eyes that shone from the mask weren’t yellow but a piercing blue) into the room, it carried him out. The door shut. In the far corners of the room, the tea lights flickered in their metal confines.

Shiro sets his cup down. Ulaz does the same with the letter. It looks to be of thick parchment, sealed with purple flame. A familiar flame. The very same one that had greeted Keith when he had first found his foxfire all those months ago and had never truly seen again. Try as he might to recall it, the only fire that ever responded to him was the kitsune’s classic blue flame. 

With a whispering of sound, followed by a deep rattling purr from Thace, fire sparks in the air between the two nekomata. One conjured from each, and each, in turn, begins to twine together with the other until a series of symbols flash through the air in rapid sequence. All in glowing violet, too quick for Keith to make sense of. Just when he thinks he has their speed down, the flames dissolve, ash falling from the air and dusting the letter. As the last of it disintegrates, the fire enshrining the letter sputters and dies. 

“What was that?” 

Ulaz looks up at him. Recognition flits through his gaze and finally seems to settle itself over his lips, now curving into a knowing smile. 

“That is the Galra clan’s trademark flame.”

“How. . .” Keith shakes his head. Not where he wants to start this, so he tries again. “Are they like the kitsune? Do they have to awaken their ability too?”

“No, the nekomata are a bit different from the foxes.”

“Then, how do they find their fire?”

Genuine surprise brightens up Ulaz’s features. Beside him, Thace lets loose a gruff chuckle. 

“That’s simple. A cat never regrets what he is.” Lips parted, Ulaz touches the tip of his tongue to a canine tooth. “You’ve seen this fire before, haven’t you?”

Fear tears into his chest at those words. He had felt the way Shiro started beside him, could feel the questioning gaze on him, elicited by shock. In all their time together, Keith had never mentioned what he had seen that night inside of himself. Down there in the depths of his very being. He had spent all these months denying it, hoping instead to cultivate everything Shiro thought of him, and now, Ulaz (not so unwittingly either) has potentially razed it all to the ground. Keith swallows around the knot in his throat and stares at the half-empty cup before him.

“Once,” he admits quietly. 

“Keith. . .”

There’s still that kindness in Shiro, warming his name with concern. Keith can’t bring himself to meet Shiro’s gaze, however. So he turns it, almost defiantly on Thace and Ulaz.

“I haven’t seen it since I first found how to use my foxfire. But it was there, the same sort of flame mixing with the blue.” He had expected detached, clinical assessment in the faces across from him, but instead, he finds something akin to understanding. A deeply mourned sort of understanding. It makes him feel loss acutely, yet Keith has no idea what he could possibly be grieving for. He licks his lips as if to wet his voice. Instead, it still comes out as a broken bit of sound, splintered by uncertainty. “Is it possible to have both?” 

Neither of them answers right away. Keith feels it like a gunshot to his chest, fragmentation and all. It’s Shiro who reaches out to him, wrapping a hand around his own and reminding him he’s still there.

Thace clears his throat. “There have been instances of such things. Rare instances. Where a god may bless a union and allow for soul energies to be combined to create a new life. That is if they believe the love strong enough and the intentions pure. I have only heard of one between a kitsune and a nekomata.”

Shiro’s hand tightens around his own, but Keith still doesn’t look at them. Instead, he leans forward, his opposite hand sliding across the table, a plea silently made. Thace shakes his head. Whatever Keith had been scrambling for simply. . .disappears. No different than staring into the depths even light has forsaken.

“During Zarkon’s war, most of the celestially-ordained yōkai were lost to the witch’s madness. Not just them, but many of our own brethren were lost in those battles. Any who were seen in opposition to his attempts to unify the realm were eliminated, except for those the witch wanted for her own schemes. We’ve not heard from either since that time.”

“How long ago was that?” Keith digs his fingers into Shiro’s palm, not sure if he’s hoping he’ll be let go of or simply hoping against hope that Shiro won’t abandon him at this moment.

“A thousand years ago,” Ulaz replies solemnly.

The words echo in his head, back and forth, back and forth, as if trapped by stagnant winds. By the time they leave The Cat’s Tongue Parlor, the only thing that registers is the warmth of Shiro’s hand around his and the dull ache pounding in his ears.


	6. Chapter 6

There had been nothing for them to do besides wait. The Blades had their mission. Allura insisted nothing needed their attention, that all was well within hand, and had suggested they utilize however brief this time for themselves. 

So, it was, five days after their visit to the Sleeping District, that Shiro had recommended a trip. _Up north_ , he had said. Only a day’s journey, which since they had the time, they might as well take the scenic route. This meant traveling by carriage, though like most things in this world, Keith came to realize it was not the typical cart-and-horse or even some semblance of an automobile. What had pulled up to Shiro’s house had been innocuous enough at rest. An oxcart, complete with awning overhead, an elaborately painted frame, deep jewel tones sinking into the wood like blood into dirt, and large mist-shrouded wheels. It was sturdy enough and didn’t even creak when their luggage was strapped down to the back. He had heard the lowing of a cow, deep, resonant, but there was nothing standing beneath the cart’s yoke. Shiro thought nothing of it and had simply swung into the seat. Keith joined him moments later and nearly startled out of the cart when it lurched forward.

Where there had been nothing, merely a sound, now stood a beast of horror. Or so Keith had imagined the conjuring of such a creature, with its oxen head and oxen body, and its disjointed limbs arching up and out like a spider’s. Where hooves should have been, fine points of white bone protruded, gouging the earth with every step. The cart rolled forward, a deceptively smooth ride. It nearly made Keith forget about the shock to his better senses and the subsequent chastisement given to himself for freaking out over something when he should have known better in this world. When he had known better of the human world. 

Only once had Shiro asked him if he was all right after the affair at The Cat’s Tongue. He had remained quiet the whole night after, insisting he would be fine, and Shiro had allowed him that space. It was his continued reluctance to interact as usual that likely had Shiro suggesting the trip. But Keith hadn’t known how to talk to him about all the things Ulaz and Thace had imparted; all the things implied not only about himself but about Shiro as well. It was like someone had dropped the curtain between them, and all Keith could see were the shadows of the things they could be talking about, all he could feel was the anticipation of the next act once it rose again. 

The place they were going had once been called The Fox’s Dream. A series of villas spread around a northern lake, surrounded by an ocean of meadow until it lapped against the mountain range. Keith spent the majority of the ride up there watching the landscape change. Around the outskirts of their city, rice paddies predominated, though he never saw anyone tending to them. Small thatched-roof houses dotted the roadway, which veered off in various directions, and rarely with any signs to indicate the way. Every so often, he’d find a crow perched on one of them, a tall wooden post with several plaques nailed to it. But the posts were moving just as they were, strutting about blindly, the words on their plaques constantly shifting. If Alice’s Wonderland could have lost its remaining marbles, this would have been that place. At least, that’s what Keith decided.

As they had moved farther north, the fields grew wilder. Grass as tall as his waist, the occasional tree, and suddenly, soldiers. They dotted the landscape like ghost lights, a pale green glow, which began to define itself the closer they got. Dressed in the ruined gear of samurai, they wandered about, aimless, looking for the things they could never possibly recover. Shiro had said they were of no harm to their kind, but should a human have the misfortune of meeting one during the haunted hours of the night, they might find themselves losing the very things the soldiers had lost. These were not like them, the yōkai who found themselves as such due to old age, like the great forest guardians or the kitsune themselves. Rather, they were the human souls never claimed by their respective ends: Heaven or Hell. Tethered, instead, to something lost and doomed forever to search for it, unable to let go.

 _Such are things with humans sometimes_ , Shiro had murmured, his voice weighted by a sadness that resonated throughout Keith’s chest. 

A cloudless sky had greeted them upon their arrival. The moon, full and silver, showered down its light over the land, but what held Keith’s attention was the glow coming from near the lake. Six-petaled lilies swayed in the breeze, flowers upturned to the moon as if offering themselves as chalices for the moonlight. Each was a dazzling white, lit up from within. As if every fallen star had found itself a new life. If anything were to be found here, it would be hope. Maybe even peace. 

He had naturally drifted towards the field after descending from the cart. Shiro had let him have his moment, taking it all in, before calling him back to the main house. By the time he arrived at the front door, his bag had been carefully set inside right beside Shiro’s. For a place that hadn’t been visited in years, it was pristinely kept. The sheets clean, the floors swept, the food fresh. All of this Keith learned had been maintained by another set of foxes. The pipe foxes. Small, thin beings that could adjust their size as needed though never any bigger than Keith in his own fox form. All in a variety of fur colors from gold to smoke, but every one of them having their tails and underbellies dipped in white. At times, they would walk about on two legs; at others dart up the stairs or across the floors quick as snakes and with the same serpentine movements.

Keith found himself becoming rather fond of them over his first week there. They were forever anticipating his needs, and at the end of the day, enjoyed curling up around him on the couch by the fire. Shiro would eventually join them and read from one of the books pulled from his library. Suspected to be a means to teach Keith the unearthly realm’s history, he nonetheless found the stories enjoyable.

Among the things he had learned was Shiro’s preference for a pavilion on the lake. There were several of them, each attached to a particular house, with this one belonging to Shiro’s. Or what had been left of Shiro’s family legacy. To get there, he had to walk a path cut through the lilies and cross over a bridge that fed into the pavilion itself. Hexagonal in shape, it was large enough for a party of people, maybe ten or fifteen, but small enough to feel intimate. No words would be lost within its grounds. Several lanterns hung from the rafters above, gilded cages that burned with the blue of foxfire within. Sitting on the very top of the pavilion’s roof, a golden fox with its nose tipped towards the sky, bushy tail curled around its feet. 

He found himself there almost as often as Shiro. Such as today. But, perhaps, that’s precisely because Shiro could be found here at any given time during the evening. Generally just after dinner, but before Keith retired to the couch with his new fox companions. Shiro had brought a trunk out to it several days prior, insisting it would make things more comfortable out here. A ponderous thing with lotus blossoms carved into its dark wood, and filled with blankets for laying out, jars of wine and silver buckets to chill them within, colorful glass containers of candied fruits and rose petals, bottles of various scented oils, and plenty of pillows, their metallic silks glimmering in the moonlight. Everything one could want for a relaxing evening out by the water.

Or say Shiro claimed. Keith hasn’t quite been sold on all of it.

Several times they had taken their evening meals out there, but tonight, Shiro had retired to the pavilion after having eaten. Keith followed, only after asking if it would be okay (it was, and the smile Shiro had given him had been positively radiant). Now, they stand here, side by side, arms resting against the railing, their gazes fixed on the lake’s placid surface. Keith could make out the outlines of the other villas, their grounds completely dark. 

“Is it always like this?”

Shiro shifts back into his heels, stretching, then tips his head towards Keith. “Now it is. But it wasn’t always.” A heaviness settles into him, the weight of memories, and he turns to look back out over the lake. “Before the first real war here, each villa had their own kitsune bloodline that owned it. And I say bloodline, but really these were just families. Some were related, as their children aged in the earthly realm and achieved yōkai status from that. Others adopted. And a rare few were blessed by the gods with their own children. . .I was adopted into the Shirogane line. There was always someone here in these houses.”

“I’ve heard. . .” Keith draws back, forearms sliding along the wood of the railing until only his hands are resting against it. It’s not that the words aren’t there. It’s that the fear is also there, of ruining all the good this place has been, of destroying what he’s found for himself by wanting too much. Whether knowledge or time or Shiro himself. . .as if in wanting, he can only ever lose.

“Go on,” Shiro prods him gently. The smile he tosses over his shoulder reminds him that Shiro may be just as broken as he is and that maybe all their broken edges might just line up to make something better than what existed before they ever knew one another. 

He settles back in along the railing, this time letting his shoulder lean into Shiro’s. “The witch. If all of this started because of something that maybe was good. . .wanting to give humans the same things as everyone else, what happened to make it go so wrong?”

Beside him, Shiro shrugs. “I wish I had the answer for that, Keith. All I know is that what started as championing a cause. . .cats can get very fond of their human owners, you know. Anyway, what started as that turned into something else. Some have said the witch found something in her studies, that she trespassed on the darker parts of this realm and was cursed for it. Zarkon changed with her. First, the fighting started among their clan, then it trickled out into the rest of our world. The gods couldn’t ignore it, and we were called upon to fight.”

“Can yōkai kill other yōkai?”

“We can devour other yōkai, which is the same. It’s how some yōkai get more powerful, by consuming those around them.”

“But the foxes had the gods behind them, didn’t they?”

“Several different types of yōkai are employed by the gods, the foxes being one of those groups. But the witch had some strange magic. . .I don’t remember much, honestly. Even after all these centuries. Every time I try to recall my time there, it’s like I’m standing in front of a locked door, and I get the feeling I should never open it.”

Keith feels his lips parting, a bit from shock but mostly from concern. Shiro’s brow had dug itself a deep furrow; a frown had taken over his lips. Like he was trying in that very moment to pick the lock and unleash whatever hell stood behind that door. Whatever he wanted to say, whatever he _could_ have said, however, remains as resolutely bound to him as Shiro’s memories did to their prison cell.

“There was a raid, some months after I was captured. It was during this that I was rescued. I met Ulaz then. . .the Blades had turned on Zarkon during that time and were launching a counteroffensive. But I had already lost half of my soul to the witch. . .” 

A well-worn grief hangs over that last sentence, not so heavy as to drag his voice down with it, but like a breeze rustling through a graveyard, Keith could feel the solemnity of that loss echoed in every syllable. 

“Does it hurt?” he asks softly. Afraid.

Shiro shakes his head. “It’s not a physical pain, usually. Unless I try to overextend my abilities. . .it’s more like a phantom limb. I can still feel it at times, but nothing is there.”

Swallowing around his next words, Keith picks through them carefully before deciding to let them go. “What is the soul orb exactly? Do I have one too?”

“Precisely what it sounds like - it’s a fox’s soul. From it, we derive all our powers. It’s our life’s energy. The soul orb is what allows us to be celestial messengers. It’s what makes us one of the most powerful beings in the unearthly realm.” He turns to him then, his smile lighter, the fire in his eyes reignited once more. What Keith sees is Shiro drawn back into this moment with him. “And I’m certain you have one, Keith. We just have to get you into your true form.”

He bites at his lower lip, worrying it just as that fear starts eating away at his heart again. “And if I can’t. . .”

“You will. You’re already more talented with your foxfire than some of the foxes I used to know. . .You catch on quick. But you need to remember to be patient with yourself. You’ve only been here a few months. These things take time.”

“Shiro. . .” A plaintive edge cuts into that name. Keith doesn’t know entirely where it came from but isn’t shocked by its appearance. He leans away from Shiro and sets his gaze roaming around the lake. The houses hold their darkness close, windows empty as they stare back out at the world. He licks at his lips, nervous. “I think. . .”

When he doesn’t finish that, Shiro shifts beside him. Just a turn of his head, gray eyes focusing on Keith. Still as brilliant as unfiltered moonlight. Waiting. 

Patient. 

Even with all his hurt, half his soul gone and knowing the limits that has placed on him, Shiro still waits to hear him out. Still gives him time, when Keith doesn’t even know what sort of time Shiro could have left with so vital a part of him missing for so long. Shiro doesn’t talk about that bit, but Keith had detected the unsaid in his words. Shiro continually reminds him of patience, even as time is slipping through his fingers. And Keith doesn’t know what he fears more at that moment: the truth he’s had to confront or the inevitable loss of the one person who made him feel like home. 

“Remember how I was telling you about that boy in the park?”

“The one you bit?”

“Yeah. . .you know, I used to revisit that place, but after a while, it didn’t look the same anymore. I thought I had the wrong park. Maybe I had forgotten. And when I think about how that boy was dressed. . .”

The words dam up his throat again. Keith grips the railing until his knuckles go white. Yet, Shiro holds his silence, giving Keith the room to navigate his way through the mess that had been his life.

“I think I’ve been alive a lot longer than twenty-three years.” He sinks down into a squat suddenly, hands still lightly gripping the railing above, and traces the swirling wood grain patterns with his gaze. “I spent a lot of time in my fox form. . .the forest fox one. I would just watch people, and I think I learned what I needed in order to survive. Not all of it was good, I guess. I mean, I know all about fake I.D.s and how to serve a table. Restaurant work is really the easiest to manage. People don’t ask a lot of questions, and you can get free meals out of it depending on the place.”

Heaving out a sigh, he cants his head to look up at Shiro. Their eyes meet, and Keith feels a warmth spread through him. Even with the faint surprise in his gaze, Shiro merely stands there, accepting each word as if it is simply a piece of Keith himself. 

Then comes the last part. The truly dreaded part. “If what Thace and Ulaz were saying is true, then I don’t have anyone else now. And I’ve been wandering for centuries. . .”

“You have me.”

Imagine, a set of words, carved into the very wood Keith had been staring at, suddenly lit on fire and given new life. Burned deeper and deeper, so that any who wandered here, even decades from now, would see it. 

_You have me._

Something seizes his heart, curling tight and tighter still around it. He’s still breathing though, and Shiro is still looking down at him, and honestly, what a right mess he must have been making. And yet, Shiro smiles.

“You look good here.”

A small laugh escapes him, though it’s more like jagged little bits of sound tumbling haphazardly over his lips. Sharp. Pointed. Hurting. “Where is here, exactly? In The Fox’s Dream?”

It happens slowly, this shift in Shiro’s expression. Softening his features, emotion drawing cloud cover into his eyes, turning the gray hazy like morning mist shrouding the deepest valleys. A quiet melancholy creeps into the shadows of his words. “Yes, here, in The Fox’s Dream. And in my garden. The kitchen back home. . .you look good there, Keith. And here.”

He feels something digging into his heart, looking for the place where it might bleed the best. “Then why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m going to lose you.”

What should he have expected then? Shock, maybe. Or even the tiniest slip of surprise. Instead, Shiro simply smiles again, this light and terrible thing incapable of denying anything that had just been said. Keith doesn’t know if the right hole in his heart had been found, but he can feel the first trickling of pain coming from it. 

“After all that time with the witch and her experiments. . . After I realized what had been taken, I’ve felt like I’ve been racing against time. I don’t know why or what for, only that there’s a finite amount of it left for me. . .The energy of this world can’t sustain my soul orb like it is, and Pidge can only do so much. I don’t know that I’ll ever be what I was before. . .and without that -”

“You can’t!” Keith cuts in, rising swiftly to his feet. Defiance roars within his words. Or absolute denial. Where would he be without Shiro? Who would he be? He’s only barely grasped that concept, like a calligrapher’s work half-finished, the word left undefined. Just black ink, waiting to become something whole. Something more powerful than a few brushstrokes of potential. “You’re not. . .We’ll find it, Shiro! If you still exist, then it has to exist too, doesn’t it? You can’t exist without half your soul. . .”

It’s then that surprise makes a show of itself. Shiro’s eyes go wide for a brief moment, the gray cleared of impending demise. Beautiful once more. With parted lips, Shiro stammers through a few sounds, then finally gets out, “It’s still somewhere. But that could be anywhere, Keith.”

“I’ll find it.” He’s never sounded so certain about something in his life. “Wherever it is, however long it takes. . .we’ll figure it out, okay? If you think I can find my true form, then we can find the other half of your soul.”

The corner of Shiro’s mouth quirks upward, but the smile doesn’t form. More of a half-thought, abandoned before it could be realized. “That’s a lot of faith for the dead, Keith. . .”

“You’re not dead yet, Shiro!”

And it happens then. Maybe it was inevitably always going to, but something bursts inside of him. Not quite his heart, but thereabouts, and before he even considers the consequences of what he’s about to do, he had done it. A hand fisted in Shiro’s kimono, his lips fastened to Shiro’s, and a silent plea in his eyes. Because it’s one thing to feel like home, as Shiro did; it’s an entirely different thing to realize you would have split your own soul just to keep him there beside you. 

Part of him anticipated a rebuff, gentle as Shiro would surely make it. The part of him that considered that Shiro might give in is still shocked when he does. Shiro sighs against his lips then reaches up to cup Keith’s cheek to kiss him again. Like he’s been waiting his whole life for this moment. Maybe what was left of it. Counting down time could give you a new appreciation of its worth. 

“That was. . .unexpected,” Shiro murmurs. He’s got a faint flush about his cheeks and looks younger than before. More like a twenty-something human, unfettered by his past, than a twenty-something human wearing his experience like dogs wear white on their muzzles. 

“I wanted to give you a reason. . .”

“A reason?”

“To stay. To keep fighting. . .”

The smile finally materializes, far too pleased with itself. “I never intended to stop, Keith. But. . .I like this reason.”

Now, the blush ignites on Keith’s cheeks. Shiro kisses him again, deeper, provocative. Ever one to rise to a challenge, Keith parts his lips and allows for Shiro’s tongue to slide in. He resists the moan that wants to make itself known, and instead, slips his hand beneath the weight of Shiro’s kimono and caresses his chest. Fingers brush lightly against a nipple, drawing a quiet growl from Shiro. He’d never imagined himself one for the sound of it, as a growl is often meant to turn you away or instigate a fight, but the rumble of it from Shiro only arouses him. With a nip to Shiro’s lips, he runs his fingers over it again, then circles it slowly. Shiro draws in a shuddering breath, kisses him once more, then move a hand down to Keith’s hip. Without a word, he steps into place behind Keith, leaving his hand bereft of skin to touch, and brushes his lips against the nape of his neck. 

He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t want to. While Shiro’s touch is light over him, it's felt far too acutely through the silk of his kimono. His hands glide from hip to abdomen, slip briefly beneath to trace a line up from navel to sternum, then retreat to his ribs, gliding over silk once more. Keith draws in a breath and holds it. Shiro has his lips against his ear, breathing warm and light, the slight tremble of anticipation to it. 

“Is this okay?” he asks.

Keith licks his lips. “Yes. Don’t stop.”

Another low growl, pleased, reverberates against his ear at that. Seconds later, his obi hits the floor with a dull thud. Shiro’s lips return to his neck in a series of light kisses, trailing from just beneath his ear to the nape. With every press against his skin, Keith finds his former fear ebbing, called back into the sea of emotion. Replaced, instead, by a slow-building heat that starts in his core. It could burn his world down or melt just enough of it to allow his life to flourish once more. That’s the sort of power it has.

Shiro tugs his kimono down over a shoulder, trailing the act with more kisses. For every inch of skin lost by the silk, Shiro covers it with his lips. He works his way down Keith’s back diligently, neglecting not even a single vertebra. One after the other, until all Keith feels is the warmth of Shiro’s entire being suffusing across his body. By the time he reaches his hips, a shiver has taken him. Shiro lets the kimono drop to the floor, a pool of fire about Keith’s feet. When he turns to glance behind him, he finds Shiro on his knees and is greeted with the scrape of teeth across the curve of his ass. 

The breath Keith sucks in then is as sharp and clear as a sickle-moon. What he thinks is a smile curving Shiro’s mouth proves itself to be a smirk, self-satisfied, a moment later when Shiro pulls back just enough for him to get a full view of his lips. He could damn that look for all it does to him, stoking the flame of desire ever hotter. A knee-buckling sort of beauty. For the first time since he had come to meet Shiro, Keith feels like this is the moment where he finally acknowledges him as a yōkai. Only someone with a bit of a devil in them could look like that - so shamelessly pleased and promising more where that came from. Made all the worse, to realize such a thing, with Shiro’s distinct lack of fox ears and tail. 

But they said the kitsune are masters of seduction. All the more deadly for it in their human forms. 

When Shiro reaches around to wrap a hand around his erect cock, Keith bites back the moan. When Shiro drags his tongue down his right asscheek, he can no longer hold it in. With a chuckle, Shiro begins to stroke down his length. Keith resists the urge to thrust into his hand, and finds, seconds later, that very thought being unraveled by the wet heat lapping at his hole. Another moan slips past his lips. He eases himself forward, just slightly, onto his forearms and rests his head against them. Opening himself up a little more to Shiro. His tongue protrudes into him. Keith tries not to think about the scene he must make. 

Shiro seems not to mind. Something almost like a purr rumbles in his chest, deeply pleasured and made all the louder by Keith’s panting of his name. He’s not sure which will do him in first: Shiro’s tongue or his hand. Both are relentless. Time loses meaning. All that remains is a creature that feels and wants and craves even more. He thrusts shallowly into Shiro’s hand, only to end up anchored into place a minute later by Shiro’s grip and a bite against his upper thigh. Keith has only a second to regret the loss of Shiro’s tongue before it returns to its previous task, tip rimming his hole teasingly. He can’t remember the last time he got off with someone else. There had been a few nights in the bath at Shiro’s house, unable to shake the image of him half-naked, wet, saying Keith’s name like it honestly meant something to him. There had been others before, humans, taken only when the desire got too much to carry even in his fox form. Short trysts that never saw him in another’s arms more than a few hours at most, and never in their beds come morning. Shiro has experience too. Keith can tell that by the way he works him now. 

He would ask about it, but the question ends up buried among a heap of others. Word-bodies to be picked apart at another time, maybe refashioned into another worth asking. Lost to him as that heat starts to coil in his core. His cock throbs in Shiro’s hand. And then, finally, release. He breathes out Shiro’s name like it’s a godsend. As much a plea as it is a gratitude. 

After giving him one last slow lick, Shiro pulls back, dragging his clean hand down Keith’s thigh while he brings the other to his lips. He tastes Keith’s slick, which only makes him ache in the residual waves of his orgasm as he catches sight of Shiro’s tongue flicking over his fingers. 

“Don’t tell me that’s all,” Keith says, breathless. He had barely found his voice for that and almost regrets speaking when he hears how strained it is. Pleasure runs through you in the oddest of ways, robbing you of some forms of vitality while restoring others. He does manage, at the very least, to smirk at Shiro over his shoulder. 

As Shiro sits back on his heels, it’s readily evident to him that this cannot be all there is. Cock straining against silk is what catches Keith’s gaze, and his smirk only grows all the bolder. “Guess not.”

With a grunt, Shiro rises to his feet and moves over to the trunk. He makes quick work of the task, pulling out a small bottle, then several of the blankets and all of the pillows. Keith watches, draped bonelessly over the pavilion’s railing, as he creates a thick bed across the floor. It’s cushioned well with the blankets; the pillows he scatters about, letting them act as bumper-guards. That’s the impression Keith gets. Though it may as well help protect against nightly drafts. Then he stands there, in the middle of it all, eyeing Keith with predatory intent. A shiver cuts down his spine at the sight. Wordless, he moves over to Shiro and kisses him hard. He draws a hand up over Shiro’s shoulder, slinking his fingers into the short hair there. With the other, he works at his obi until it gives way. Shiro’s kimono falls open before him.

Keith gives an appreciative whistle.

“You’ve seen me naked before,” Shiro reminds him. 

A low hum escapes him, buying him time as he drags a hand across Shiro’s chest, up beneath the kimono and begins working it over his shoulders. “Not like this.”

“Is this better then?”

He can tell Shiro is teasing him. That fox’s smirk sits coiled at the corner of his mouth again.

“I thought you were good looking then. But I wasn’t going to go hoping or anything.”

“And now?”

“Now, I’m hoping you’ll fuck me.”

Shiro laughs. “I’m hoping you’ll let me.”

Pushing the kimono down Shiro’s arms, Keith bides his time before answering. He eases the silk around his hand, where Shiro holds the bottle, then steps back in so their bodies are nearly flush. Just enough room between them for Keith to take hold of Shiro’s cock and give it one solid pump. The shudder alone is worth the time he took. 

“I’m letting you,” Keith murmurs against Shiro’s lips. 

“However you like,” Shiro responds, his words heated with promise. 

They kiss again, not quite desperate but needy. Enough force to bruise just a bit, lips certain to be a little swollen, but Keith welcomes it all. He licks at the corner of Shiro’s mouth, the gesture all too canine in its appeasement, before pushing him back. Testing the blankets, he drops to his knees over the most padded portion, then lowers his hands to the ground. On all fours, he wiggles his ass invitingly. Shiro’s face lights up amusement, the fond sort that makes one fall in love all the deeper. With a shake of his head, he lowers himself behind Keith and kisses the nape of his neck to the sound of the bottle’s stopper popping free. The scent of gardenias has Keith turning his head. 

Shiro slicks his fingers with the oil, near colorless but fragrant. Not overpoweringly so, but enough that Keith catches the hint of it with every breath. He watches as Shiro drizzles some of the liquid over his ass, a breath hitching as it slips down between his cheeks and over his already sensitive hole. Shiro doesn’t give him the time to luxuriate in the sensation. He slips a finger inside of Keith easily enough and barely hesitates when Keith groans at the intrusion. A flash of pleasure ripples through his limbs. His cock twitches. 

He finds Shiro to be an indulgent lover. Attentive to details is perhaps the better phrase for it. When Keith starts to feel restless, he adds in another finger and soothes him in the interim with nips and kisses to his skin. Shoulders, lower back, thighs. Nothing is out of Shiro’s reach or imagination. Sometimes, he lingers over a spot, drawing to the surface a slow-burgeoning bruise. By the time Shiro has introduced the third finger, his cock is hard again and his mind muddled with pleasure. 

“Shiro. . .”

It’s all the permission needed. When Shiro enters him, there’s an initial pulse of pain as his body adjusts to the sudden stretch. He gives a soft cry, body stilling. 

“Keith?”

Shiro’s voice is nothing but unadulterated concern. Half-buried inside of him, Keith can feel his reluctance to continue. His hands are gentle in their hold over his hips, thumbs running circles over his skin. A moment later, a shiver runs through Shiro and right into him. Restraint being vigorously tested. Keith breathes through his mouth, then nudges himself back against Shiro carefully.

“I’m fine. . .I just wasn’t expecting. . .”

Shiro still doesn’t move. “Expecting?”

“I haven’t done this for a while.” He clears his throat, body aching in a variety of ways and all of them demanding to be tended to. “And you’re. . .bigger than most.”

“Oh.” Whereas some men might have gloated over that fact, preening with their cocks on full display like a bird of paradise its feathers, Shiro issues that single utterance with relative lack of ego. More of a fact to take into consideration. “Should I. . .?”

Keith wiggles his hips in defiance. A growl rises in response to that. Aroused by the sound, warning as it had been, Keith tightens up around Shiro. The growl drags out into a moan.

“Would you fuck me already, Shiro?”

He doesn’t have to ask twice. Easing himself in, he allows Keith a minute to acclimate to the stretch of him, then slowly starts working himself in and out. Never pulling his cock out entirely, but leaving the tip buried before sliding himself back inside. Several times, Shiro pauses there, just the head of his cock seated within Keith, and pulses there, fucking him with just an inch or two. Against Keith’s rim, already previously worked at by Shiro’s tongue, he finds the sensation of this nearly unbearable. He snarls, tossing a glare over his shoulder at Shiro, and is greeted with a devil’s grin. 

With a groan, he drops his head against his hands, now balled into fists around one of the blankets. The whine that slides out of him next is what earns him what he had been hoping for. Shiro drives into him, even, powerful strokes that gain with speed as he eases up around Shiro’s cock. He moves more seamlessly, sliding in and out until Keith starts panting against a pillow. As his rhythm increases, Shiro clamps his hands down around Keith’s hips, forcing him to still. Until Shiro is essentially fucking into him. Hard, fast, relentless. Every thrust that bottoms Shiro out inside of him rocks his body forward. His thighs quiver with the effort it takes to keep himself kneeling there. Without Shiro’s hands, Keith is certain he would have collapsed minutes ago. But Shiro holds him steady, the sharp slap of skin striking skin cutting into the silence surrounding the lake. 

Glancing under his right arm, Keith catches sight of Shiro’s face. He looks positively enrapt, lips parted, the faint sheen of sweat on his brow, his eyes bright as stars in the darkest of nights. Everything Keith could imagine praying to. And then, Shiro shuts his eyes, tips his head up, and releases a deep moan. Keith can trace the line of his neck, the strain of muscle, and his name over Shiro’s lips. When Shiro climaxes, Keith decides it’s one of the most beautiful things he has ever witnessed. 

They fall to one another three more times that night. Keith again on hands and knees, on his back, and lastly, riding Shiro. To give him a memory he would never forget. 

Still straddling him, breathless, sated, Keith starts grinning. Shiro smiles up at him, his chest heaving. There’s a light in his eyes that Keith has never seen before. An exquisite inner glow, as if Shiro has shrugged off his memories, wiped clean his scars, and remembered that moments are worth living for. And if Keith never does another damn thing in his life, he knows that this is one of those rare accomplishments that could never dim with the press of time. 

He slides off Shiro, but before he can slink off to clean himself, is pulled against Shiro’s side. Laughter breaks from him. Turning his head up, he kisses at Shiro’s chin. “I’m a mess.”

“So am I,” Shiro answers, sounding thoroughly unrepentant for that. As silence settles back in over them, he wraps an arm around Keith. “Stay for just a little while. We can clean up in a bit.”

One eyebrow lifted, the only question he’ll ask of that request, Keith settles in against Shiro’s side. He curls an arm over his chest and props his head up against the back of his hand. Positioned like this, he can clearly see Shiro’s face.

“What is it?”

Keith tips his head to the side. A smile starts to peek out from the corners of his mouth. “Since we’re on the topic of messes. Do yōkai not believe in condoms?”

Shiro appears to consider this quite deeply. His brow draws tight. His mouth goes slack. “We don’t really have diseases here. So, those things that plague humans. . .”

“The things that live here never get sick?”

“It’s not that.” Drawing in a deep breath, Shiro shifts slightly. He tucks his other arm behind his head and stares down the bridge of his nose at Keith. The scar still sits across his skin. Always did, even in his yōkai form. “We suffer from curses. And those require rituals and rights and always have a specific target. In that same vein, yōkai don’t give humans diseases, but rather curse them. Or they have the potential to. That, in turn, can lead to disease or madness. And we can’t procreate like humans either.”

He had figured out that much from before. The gods' blessings. Whatever that meant. Keith simply took away the fact that yōkai didn’t breed like the creatures that populated the earthly realm. The gods must be different as well.

“Should I use them next time?” Asked in all earnestness.

Keith shrugs. “I don’t mind, I guess. I’ve never. . .had this happen before.”

“But it’s happened?” 

Another shrug. “What about you?”

Shiro’s expression softens, different from how he had been looking at Keith just then, which had convinced Keith someone like Shiro could, in fact, love him. Rather, this is something touched by grief. An age-old loss that Shiro has confronted time and time again and has made his peace with it. _Such are things with humans sometimes._ So they are with yōkai as well, Keith thinks. 

“Once. The war on the foxes took a great toll. . .”

Keith snuggles in closer to Shiro, some innate need to remind him of the fact that they were both here. But it doesn’t stop him from murmuring “I’m sorry” with honest remorse.

Shiro shakes his head. He pulls his hand from behind his head and brushes his knuckles across Keith’s cheek. “We weren’t even on the same battlefield. There was nothing I could have done.”

Leaning into Shiro’s touch, he allows silence to reclaim the pavilion. They lay there, entwined in one another, their gazes locked, hearts answering the other’s call until their breathing has matched up. Shiro starts to smile then.

“Anything else I can answer for you tonight?”

His lips purse together in thought. Keith flips through his memories, like a librarian does a card catalog (though decidedly less organized), and finally settles on one. “How come we lose our clothes when we change into our fox form, but when you went into your nine-tailed one, you returned with them still on?”

The question takes Shiro by surprise. He blinks down at Keith, the smile still clinging, a bit bewildered now, to his lips. “Out of all the great mysteries and the histories I have imparted to you over these last two weeks, you ask that.”

“I’m asking that,” Keith confirms, an impish grin tugging at his lips. 

“Well,” Shiro says, then pauses to clear his throat. “The forest fox form is an actual, physical form. But the nine-tailed form, our true form, that’s more of a spiritual manifestation. It’s intimately linked to our yōkai form.”

He remembers then how Shiro had stepped over the sakaki branch, his human form still visible though faded. 

“We’re not shedding our form but rather reimagining it. The nine-tailed form can be physical. . .” His brow creases again as if trying to envision the best terms to convey what he wants to say. Like plucking colors out of a color spectrum, wondering which red is too red and which too pink. “If our souls inhabit one place of existence and our bodies another, then they simply switch planes when we change between that form and the others. It’s like opening one dimension and trading places with another part of ourselves.”

“So, we can exist at the same time but not in the same place then. . .”

“Something like that.”

“But if you were to go from your human form to the forest fox then to the nine-tailed form, when you attempted to return to your human form, you would be naked.”

“Because of the first shift.”

“Exactly.”

Keith settles his head back down on Shiro’s chest, interest in the conversation having caused him to lift it for a better view of Shiro’s face. 

“I didn’t take you for the type to like metaphysical pillow talk. . .”

A snort, mostly amused. “I’m going to clean up, Takashi.”

The look on Shiro’s face stuns him in his tracks. That inner glow (call it happiness or joy or just unbound freedom) is back, brighter than before. It touches even the grin pulling itself to life over Shiro’s lips. “Say that again.”

“Takashi.”

* 

They wake to the sound of a crow cawing and the moon staining the lake’s surface red. A false dawn. Shiro had murmured the words the moment his eyes had set on the moon above, now a deep, blood-drenched crimson. Keith is more concerned with the crow hopping back and forth along the railing to his left. It’s relentless in its dance for their attention.

“Shiro. . .”

He turns at the sound of his name, but Keith swears he can see red staining the gray of his eyes, reminding him of the roses burning through their ash petals. Keith motions to the crow. The color drains from Shiro’s eyes, leaving behind steel gray. A sword forged, the fires forgotten. 

“About time.”

“Did the crow just. . .” Keith starts only to be halted when the bird in question holds out its wing as if to stop him right there.

“I did.”

“And it sounds like. . .”

“Hunk.” Shiro says it like he had just announced that the sun rises in the east.

“Yeah. And I’m gonna need you guys to get some clothes on. Like now.”

Keith is still cautiously enthralled by the creature. Three-legged like the one before, beak slightly agape though no movement is noted when the words come out of its throat. More like a megaphone, with the voice somewhere behind it. The crow jerks its head to the side, then flutters its wings in agitation.

“Why?” Shiro asks, tone sharp. Decisive, as if he’s already prepared to act, he only needs to know what for. “What’s happened?”

Black feathers fluff up then resettle. Keith gets the impression the bird had just shivered. 

“There’s been an attack. Or rather, they’re attacking right now. Allura needs you to head to the Nue’s forest.”

“Where’s that?” 

“You know the forest a few miles out from the town?” Shiro’s already pulling on his kimono, though he pauses to look over at Keith.

“Ok, so there. What's a Nue?” The point is taken - get dressed. He reaches over to locate his own kimono, lost somewhere in the mess of their makeshift bed. When his hand hits an abnormally warm spot, he thrusts it beneath the blankets. 

“Something you do _not_ want to deal with,” Hunk supplies through the crow. “Anyway, it’s not awake yet, but who knows how long that will last. Sendak brought a force there. . .Allura thinks it might be to call the Nue out. Maybe they hope to convince it to take to their side.”

“That thing never listens to anyone,” Shiro mutters. There’s a touch of irritation to his voice as if a long-slumbering grievance had been woken up.

“Well, I mean that’s not true,” Hunk murmurs.

Tying his obi around his waist, with a bit of undue force, Keith turns on the crow. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying that if it should awaken, a fox has the ability to make it listen. Well, a nine-tailed fox. . .”

“Hunk, I’m nowhere near capable of compelling a Nue to listen.”

“Well, you could try? And we have Keith now too!”

“I don’t even have a two-tailed form yet!”

“Oh. . .well that could be a problem. Though you would think Allura was aware of this. Whatever. She wants you both there. Now.”

Without giving them the chance to reply, the crow takes off with a final caw that resonates across the lake.

Shiro wastes little time. Foxfire blazes through the air, the symbols lingering as a portal opens at the edge of the bridge. His movements had been as smooth as any other time, conjuring with the ease of second-nature abilities, but Keith had seen it, the tremor down his spine that pulled his back rigidly upright. After everything they had just been through with one another the night before, after everything they had found, Keith sees it all slipping away. Shiro gives only a glance over his shoulder before he walks through the portal. When Keith follows, it’s with the old fear nipping at his heels.

Situated on the outskirts of their city, beyond the rice paddies, is a forest of tall pines. They crowd together, as if incapable of sharing the forest floor with the moonlight above, making it the darkest place Keith has ever seen. He’s never ventured inside of it, and Shiro has never had any reason to travel there. A place, rumor told him, that housed horrors the ocean depths would have nightmares of.

A road runs alongside it, a border of sorts. It’s here that they found themselves, surrounded by screams, snarls, laughter. Madness. Keith ducks as a boulder comes flying over his head. It crashes into one of the rice fields, water and muck spraying around it. The one who had tossed it, a mountain oni, roars in frustration. Before he can finish his rage-cry, another beast, large as a black bear, its red wings spread wide, swoops in on it. Clawed hands grapple with clawed feet, and both are lost to the forest a moment later. 

Keith looks over at Shiro, uncertain of what to do. He knows how a fox fights. He knows how humans war. He doesn’t know how yōkai proceed with battle. But Shiro. . .his fox ears are trained on the forest. His tail completely still. He barely even blinks. Complete entranced. Calling to his own yōkai form, Keith begins to understand why. From the depths of the woods, a song can be heard weaving quietly through the darkness. There’s a sadness to it, a yearning that tugs on his soul. But nothing more than that. No more capable of snaring him than a movie whose end credits begin to roll. He remembers the feelings evoked but can move on easily enough. 

But Shiro. . .

The music shifts. Faster. Calling out. Notes screeching discordantly into the air. A cry goes up from the forest. Shiro lets out a groan and would have dropped to his knees had Keith not caught him. 

“Shiro. . .? Shiro answer me. I’m right here!”

He’s trying not to panic. Everything around him would have him fall to it though. And maybe that’s what battlefields truly are, everyone just trying to deny their own slipping grasp on the circumstances. 

Shiro only grunts, his face screwed up by some pain Keith cannot understand but feels more acutely than anything that song drifting from the forest would have him feel. He has to get Shiro away from here. He has to. . .

“Just as she said. I must admit, I never cared much for prophecy, but when they work out in my favor, who am I to begrudge them?”

“Sendak.” The name rips itself from his throat with a fury that surprises even Keith. 

A scream erupts from Shiro. Deep, visceral, soul-rending in its pain. Where Keith flinches, Sendak laughs. The sound only sparks hatred in his core, even as something tells him that’s not the answer to this, that Shiro will not be helped by emotions that scald more than they soothe. Even so, Keith doesn’t stop himself from glaring at the Galra. 

“Now, there is a promising look.”

Keith glances down at Shiro, who remains as unresponsive as before. Lost to whatever is afflicting him. Reluctantly, Keith lowers him down to the ground with a murmured _Wait for me_ then places himself between Shiro and Sendak. 

“What do you want here?”

“What we’ve always wanted, kit. Freedom.”

“You have that here already.”

“You call this being free? Bound by the gods, robbed of our right to the Night Parade and the human realm? We will reclaim it.” Sendak lets his last words loose with a snarl. 

“Oh, please. You speak of the archaic, Sendak.”

Of all the things Keith never imagined he would see in his lifetime, a black cat strutting down a dirt roadway in the middle of a battle would have been top on his list. Lotor, for his part, is completely unfazed. Behind him, his two tails twitch, as if to highlight the smugness exuded by every aspect of him - from his words right down to his body language. 

Sendak doesn’t even flinch. Simply lifts his lip as a growl bubbles in his throat. “I didn’t think the scavengers would be arriving yet.”

Stopping several feet from them both, Lotor sits back on his haunches and lifts a paw. He gives a flippant wave of it, brushing Sendak’s words aside, and cants his head in Keith’s direction. “You really should keep a closer eye on him. He’s in no condition to be wandering anywhere by himself. Least of all a battlefield.”

Panic surges in him again. Keith spins on his heels to find an empty field behind him. No Shiro. Heart dropping into the pit of his stomach, he turns once more, eyes scouring the world around him. Just as he catches sight of Shiro, shifted now into his nine-tailed form and moving towards the woods, Sendak launches himself forward with a laugh. Callous in its mirth, it’s like ice pelting against glass. 

Smoke clouds the air. Sendak never reaches him, though Keith stands there, preparing to take him on. Or in whatever capacity he believed he could. He had been through his fair share of playground fights and back-alley brawls, but none of them had ever involved a nekomata nearly twice his size. As the smoke clears, Keith sees what had stopped Sendak in his tracks.

Lotor.

In his true form, he’s not nearly as tall as Sendak. More lithe, than brawny powerhouse. Like a panther facing off against a tiger, each deadly in its own right, but even Keith doubts Lotor’s ability to hold off Sendak on his own. Even as the proof stood before him, their paws locked together, each vying for ground, each looking ready to savor his victory. Lotor’s right ear flicks back toward Keith. His double-tail swishes back and forth. Unlike most of the Galra Keith had seen, Lotor’s fur carries a silver sheen to it, with undertones of lavender. Short haired for the most part, with feathering down the backs of his legs and tails. As Sendak tries to push the advantage of his weight, Lotor steps aside quickly last minute and sends him flying into the field behind them. 

“Now then, I believe you and I can help one another out.”

He blinks, watching as Sendak shakes his head, seemingly dazed though Keith doesn’t know how he could be after so mild a toss. Shiro hit him harder in their previous fight. 

“What sort of deal are you talking about? Make it quick!”

Examining the nails of his right hand, Lotor barely spares a glance toward Keith before answering. He has a handsome face, a bit more angular, with high cheekbones. And his eyes. . .unlike in his cat form where they burned that same yellow as all Galra did, their pupils are a deep blue. Even Sendak’s still kept their strange yellow in his true form. But, Lotor had claimed a different lineage. Perhaps there is truth to the statement after all.

“It seems that witch is in possession of the Great Goddess’ lute. She may have had my father wrapped up in her schemes, but she could never convince me of their good. What does a goddess, fallen or otherwise, know of what this realm needs?” 

“I’m already aware of that. Now, if you have nothing else, I’m going after Shiro!” The panic had started to bite at him again. From the edge of the forest, Keith can still make out Shiro’s figure moving through it, tails waving, the ninth still shadow-bound. Yet, he knows it’s not the panic that’s urging him forward. Fear. It’s threatening to swallow him whole unless he acts to hold onto the one thing that made him risk its very wrath. 

“She also has the other half of your friend’s soul.” Lotor drops that statement like bait before a starving wolf. 

Keith feels those words as keenly as a knife pressed to his throat. Somewhere behind him, Sendak groans. 

“She’s using it to command these yōkai here. Why else do you think he’s forgotten you for her?”

Confusion barrels into his chest, making a fine mess of the panic and fear already tearing the place apart. A disaster of emotions, and no easier to clean up than a building dropped by a wrecking ball. Lotor smiles at him, bemused. And then, suddenly, something seems to click for him. He begins to laugh.

“How rich is this! A fox unaware of its own soul! Well, perhaps you aren’t to be blamed. You aren’t full fox after all. . .”

“How. . .”

The whole world is going to hell around him, and through it all, Keith can only think of getting to Shiro. The one thing that ever made sense here for him. He starts to move forward. 

“Have they told you nothing?”

“It. . .it doesn’t matter! I need to get to Shiro!”

“I can help you. Not only to find him but to get his soul orb back.”

“Keith, don’t listen to him!” 

The chaos around him falls to a whisper. There’s a dull ringing in the back of his head. Whether from the lute’s song or that pressing need to go after Shiro, Keith doesn’t know. But when Allura alights before him, he nearly forgets even that. She’s radiant, as always, and the mere sight of her brings calm back into his soul. Sendak unleashes a roar behind him.

It’s Lotor who silences him again. This time, Keith sees what robs the nekomata of his senses. The cat’s fire, infused with silver lightning. It binds itself around Sendak’s throat until the breath nearly drowns in his chest. Only then does it let up, leaving Sendak dazed and gasping for air.

“There really is no need for a goddess to involve herself in our little matter here. Though, it is always so nice to see you, Allura.”

“Save it, Lotor.” She pushes past him and starts examining Keith like a flustered mother hen. Satisfied with her once over, she exhales heavily. “You need to find, Shiro. I’m afraid you’re the only one who can help him.”

“That’s a bit of nonsense, now, isn’t it?”

Keith glares over at Lotor. “What’s he talking about, Allura?”

All this time, he’s been aware of his lack of knowledge. It’s what brought him to this world in the first place, what kept him here initially. And even now, he’s painfully aware of all he doesn’t know.

“It’s the gods who lost their lute. A god who brought this calamity upon our world. Who took Shiro’s soul, and the souls of so many others.” Lotor throws the words down like a challenge. Not for him. For the gods.

“This is not the time nor the place for this, Keith. You must go to him,” Allura pleads. 

Lotor barks out a laugh at that, the sound hard with accusation. “These gods think they can maintain the balance here. They wrested that control from us when it was a god who disrupted the balance in the first place. All those kitsune, celestial messengers no less, lost! But only a god may expunge a yōkai's soul. Humans simply weaken it or banish it from their realm. A yōkai, in turn, may very well take a human’s life, but a human can end a god should their beliefs die. And it is fear that keeps everyone alive, particularly the humans. Without it, think of how many would perish due to their own delusional ideas of immortality!” He steps towards Keith, arms open. “We are the ones who remind them of that fear, of the very sacredness of their own lives. My father had the wrong idea, trying to subjugate and spread fear until it consumed all. That witch is no better, having perverted his goals and her own in stripping our world of its most vital energies. I merely wish to maintain the balance, and why should we not have our own emperor capable of keeping it so? You can help me in this, Keith, and I, in turn, can help you retrieve Shiro’s soul.”

He feels it at the fringes, the noise wanting to explode back into his reality, the truth of everything he is and could be, the pain and heartbreak of those unable to decide for themselves. So, he simply lets it. He shuts his eyes, breathes in, and opens himself up to the world once more. No longer lulled by Allura’s presence, he takes it all in and realizes what he must do.

Follow Shiro. 

The gods, Lotor with his ambitions, the balance of the worlds. All of it meaningless. Perhaps he’ll never become a kitsune, maybe his blood is too soiled for that, but he would rather fight with Shiro at his side than serve another’s ideals alone. 

When he looks at Allura, he can see her expression change. And it baffles him. Rather than disappointment, she smiles at him, everything about her soft with acceptance. For a moment, Keith feels like he got it right. She reaches out to him and settles her palm on the top of his head. Again, the world falls to silence, but somewhere down in the very core of all that he is, beyond the place his heart knows best, Keith feels something release. He exhales as Allura pulls her hand away. 

“Go. I will manage these two for the time being.”

He doesn’t look back. As before, Shiro left no trace of a scent to follow, so Keith tracks the only thing he could rely upon, the lute. It leads him into the forest, into a darkness so deep he could only feel his way through it. Even with his fox’s vision, he can see nothing. Occasionally, in the distance, flames would parade down towards the main battle site. He hears creatures stirring in the forest, trampling undergrowth beneath their bulk, snorts cutting through the silence or the occasional yell of surprise. Overheard, he can make out the cawing of crows. Every so often, one of them would scream, outraged by something. And still, he runs on, the music growing louder with every shadow he overtakes. 

In the distance, he can now make out a dim glow. Small. A mere pinpoint in the dark. But instinct pulls him toward it like a homing beacon. His chest burns. His heart aches. The light keeps growing brighter.

And then, something slams into him, hard as a stampeding bull. It sends him flying into a clearing, the world blurring around him as sirens ring warning in his head. Just a little too late. Something cool trickles over his feet. Beneath him, the ground is moist. It smells rich and fertile, and every ounce of his body wants just to lay there and sleep. The music takes a slightly somber note, lulling him. Keith shakes it off, tries to stand, and nearly collapses under his own weight. He attempts again and barely manages to climb to his knees.

Standing before him is Shiro, all nine-tails. Black as the forest around him. At his feet, a small stream runs through the glade.

“Shiro?”

The music strikes a strident cord. Shiro snarls at him then lunges. Too late does Keith realize it was Shiro who had barreled into him, who had brought him to this place. He dodges the attack. Shiro whips around, quick as a cat’s strike, and tries to bite him. Tries, Keith notes, and would have succeeded if not for the flare of fire from his kimono. Having jumped back at the flash of heat (felt and yet did not damage to the silk nor Keith’s skin he realized), Shiro stalks the perimeter of the glade. The gray has consumed his eyes, confined no longer to his pupils but washing over even his sclera. A hard, cement-like stare, carrying no emotion, no semblance of the being called Shiro. Just a feral creature, unaware of its own self. 

Another harsh note cries out across the glade. Shiro launches himself forward again. And that’s when he sees it, that dim white light that he had taken for Shiro’s soul orb. Only Shiro doesn’t have it. It rests inside of a small groove, cut into the body of a lute, which is cradled in the lap of a woman Keith has never seen before. She sits above them on a small outcropping of rock. Her body is covered in a cloak as black as Devastation itself; her fingers delicate as they pluck at the lute’s strings. But it’s her gaze, a deep, remorseless stare affixed to Keith that chills him. 

The witch. 

There is nothing in her eyes. As if she sees, but like a keeper of time, remains unaffected by the events around her. Simply continues to play, each note resonating across the forest, bringing chaos from a soul who had pledged himself to balance. What sort of fate is that? For anyone, not just Shiro. To have the best of everything you were, twisted and turned against the world you loved. He doesn’t have the room to grieve for this, no air to spare for sobs. But he can fight.

Keith knows this. Just as he remembers what he had promised and the way Shiro had looked when released, for a few short hours, from his past. When he turns to face Shiro next, the world burns white around him. Time slows, his heartbeat settles, and the forest appears as it could have been, flooded with color and life. Like stepping into another world, Keith meets Shiro head on, but not as a man or a yōkai. 

The witch stops playing suddenly. Shiro collapses, a puppet with its strings cut. 

“So, you did have the ability.”

Keith turns his head in her direction. All around him a pale golden glow lights up the darkness. As he moves towards her, she starts to smile. A hideous, soul-devouring thing. However, he feels no fear. Because he understands it now. . .the history of this world, of how gods can fall, and how in some ways, Lotor is right, that fear binds so many of them together. None of it though could tell the entire story. Not his, not humankind’s, not the gods or the yōkai. Keith doesn’t stop moving until he’s covered Shiro’s form with his own, shielding him from the witch. 

She strums a seemingly simple set of notes. Keith flicks an ear and glances down beneath him. Shiro doesn’t stir. He’s caught for a moment, though, by the glow of his own fur, his paws burning red and fading into gold along his forelimb. With a look behind him, he sees the flicker of several tails. Nine in total. So, he’s been alive for at least nine hundred years, if one believed the tales. Like his feet, the tips of his tails are red, the rest of him like consolidated sunlight. Weaving through his tails is a small ball of light, a miniature star set on supernova. Only Keith knows it won’t devastate this world. It may, however, give it life.

The same set of notes echoes again. Below him, Shiro continues to lay there, lifeless. There’s nothing he can do without Shiro’s soul orb. But to leave Shiro is to put him at the witch’s mercy once more. Keith knows this inherently, and so, there is only one answer for him. To move, and reclaim what is rightfully Shiro’s. 

With a scowl, the witch picks up another song. Soft, almost sibilant. Played with the same grace of a snake crossing desert dunes. Keith’s head starts to sway to the sound of it, though his thoughts remain his own. She sits just out of jumping distance. The rock face, like the forgotten ruins of a once majestic mountain, offers little purchase for him. Whether fox or human form, it would be a near-impossible climb. To the right, however, there’s a fallen pine, its trunk splintered, but still a potential launching point.

There’s a lull in her playing. Keith springs forward. He’s faster in this form, lighter; as if part of the very soul of nature itself, his body knows precisely where to step, the route to take. With his destination set, he need only to drive himself toward it. Instinct tells him the rest. 

He never makes it to the pine. 

Veering off at the last second, he spins around just in time to watch as black lightning strikes the tree. It doesn’t ignite, but the energy crackles around the fallen pine like a live-wire net. Instinct also tells him not to go near it. That like a snake with its head cut off, a fallen god can still bite.

“Well, this is a right predicament.”

Allura steps into the glade, no different from the very first time Keith had ever seen her. As though pushing back the curtain of night, a star stepping out to claim its place among the darkness. Or, more aptly, to help light it up. 

“And look at you now, Keith. You make a rather handsome kitsune.” 

Do his tails give the slightest wag at that bit of praise? Keith chooses to ignore the truth of that answer. But he does feel a faint warmth sprouting in his chest.

“Allura!” The name is more of a hiss, full of vitriol, centuries of carefully brewed hatred.

“I’d like to ask how you found that lute, Haggar, but first, I need you to turn over that soul orb you took from my messenger.”

It’s not laughter, but a harsh cackle that resounds across the clearing. “My dear, do you honestly think you have that ability? You, yourself? Without the gods to back you up?”

“I don’t need the gods. I have him,” Allura says calmly. She sweeps her arm to the side, indicating Keith, who stands there a bit bewildered. “Don’t look so confused, Keith. Besides, we need to get Shiro’s soul back. So, a little help would be appreciated.”

The lute cries out. A hard, angry sound that reverberates around the glade. Minutes later, the forest itself seems to roar with indignation. Keith shakes his head. The witch scowls. 

“You’ve already. . .” she accuses, her gaze turned on Allura.

“I have rather little time, so if you would ready yourself, Keith.” 

Whatever had passed between the gods - one fallen, the other seemingly abandoned by her own kind - escapes Keith. He has no time to ask what Allura meant either. Her lips are already moving, forming words as quick as a hunting wolf cutting through the woods, and Keith gets the impression they could be just as deadly. With every syllable dropped, the glow around her brightens. The black energy around the pine tree shorts out with a loud bang. Haggar rises to her feet. Only then does Keith see the way her lips are moving as well. Just as rapid. All of it nonsensical. But as he knows the forest, Keith understands there is something ancient in the language, long forgotten but all the more powerful for the forgetting. Those rare few with command over it are the things to be truly feared in this world. 

Some people are fond of saying the old ways die, as if it's some rite of passage, bringing the world to a more golden age. And in some ways, they would be correct. Time continues to flow. Everyone seeks to elevate themselves, whether in fortune or fame or knowledge. A few, the spiritual. But this realm is proof that the old things don’t simply die. They can change shape, inspire fear, or protect the things humans too often forget need protecting. 

With one hand, Haggar hangs onto the lute. Keith doesn’t think twice. He races for the fallen pine, launches himself off of its tallest base point, and lands on the ledge with a rather graceless slip of his back foot. Not enough to stall his mission. White light explodes around him, harmless, though Haggar screams. More from frustration than pain. But the neck of the lute is in his mouth, and he takes the leap out into the air, prepared for the inevitable crash. 

It never comes. 

Coran, in full komainu form, has him by the scruff of his neck. He doesn’t let go of Keith, and Keith doesn’t let go of the lute. From his vantage point though, he can see Allura down below, still chanting, the glow around her getting brighter by the word. At some point, there’s going to be another explosion; Keith can feel the energy of it in the air. And just as it races towards that pinnacle, Haggar disappears in a cloud of black smoke. The light around Allura dims.

He’s set down rather gently beside Shiro. 

“So much for that,” Allura sighs. “But, we have the lute.”

“She still has the tide jewel.”

“Yes, thank you for that reminder, Coran.” A light gloss of irritation to her tone. It softens a moment later as she addresses Keith. “If you would. . .”

Shiro still hasn’t moved. Panic starts to well up again, threatening to flood his lungs, drown his heart. He allows Allura to take the lute from him and watches with unshielded worry as she pulls the orb out from its resting place. It’s a beautiful instrument, inlaid with gold in a cloud motif, its strings silver, but all of that is lost on Keith at that moment. All he can see is Shiro’s soul orb, fractured in two. Something like a sob bursts in his chest. Soundless as so much of pain tends to be. 

“Mending a soul is a rather difficult task, even for a god,” Allura says quietly. She studies each piece, both emitting a faint glow. A dying glow. “Doing so often requires a sacrifice.”

Without hesitation, Keith steps forward. 

“Does he meant that much to you?”

Shiro had given him everything he needed to live on in this world. He had a home, understood what he was, had made connections that could help him continue better than before. It’s the closest thing to family Keith has ever known, or at least, could remember. But without Shiro. . .without Shiro. . .what other fate did the moon have if gravity lost its effect. To crash into the Earth, or maybe simply drift away, untethered. A lost would-be planet. 

“I see.” Allura beckons him closer to where she now stands over Shiro’s body. Nothing more than a soulless shadow. “There is something I can do, but it will require you, and it will not be painless. I wish I could ease that, but to bind a soul, requires the energy of another.”

Keith sits down beside Shiro, stares for a moment at Allura, then lays himself down. He settles his head against Shiro’s neck, drapes his tails across Shiro’s body, and exhales softly. 

With a few whispered words, Allura’s calls his soul orb from where it had nested between his fourth and fifth tails. Where Shiro’s soul had always emitted a faint silvery blue glow, his burns with intermittent bursts of lavender and blue. 

Allura runs her fingers across its surface. “Fitting that the one who mends it carries the legacies of both the ones who broke it and the ones who loved it.” She tips her head towards Keith with a smile, tragedy-touched and apologetic. “You know. . .this is the second promise you’ve now had me break today.”

Before Keith could lift his head, pain paralyzes him. He can only watch as Allura draws a thin strand of light from his soul orb, alternating pulses of blue and purple coursing down its length, and begins to weave her hand back and forth before her. Shiro’s soul orb hangs in the air, fractured as before, but where the fault line had been, the string pulled from his own orb begins suturing it closed. All the while, the pain ricochets about his form, as if his body recognizes the loss of something vital to himself. But Keith only looks on as the wound over Shiro’s soul heals itself under Allura’s guidance. 

By the end, Keith realizes his own orb doesn’t glow any less than before, but Shiro’s has taken on a new light. Silver as before, with pale blue running circuits over its surface. Allura places it gently over Shiro's chest, then sets her hand on Keith.

“Rest now.”

*

He smells smoke. Faint, like it had been carried by a far-off wind. Taking another breath, Keith opens his eyes to a familiar sight - Shiro’s garden. His whole body aches, but he feels. . .lighter. Contented. Warm. Above him, the sakaki tree is in bloom once more, and beneath him. . .

Shiro.

A set of tail wags greets him as he lifts his head. Nine of them. Golden-white from base to tip. There’s a dusting of black fur over Shiro’s paws, on the tips of his ears, but the rest of him burns the purest white. With a soft whine, Keith nuzzles back into him, head burrowing into the fur of Shiro’s neck. Because he smells like fresh snow and winter’s warmth. Shiro’s scent, that one that is all his own. After several minutes of laying there, curled up around one another, Shiro finally stretches out his legs and nips at Keith’s mouth. He gets the intention, and without complaint, rises from their dirt bed to shake himself off.

A shower sounds good.

Naturally, the pantry is bare after two week's absence from the house. But there is tea. Which seems like its own sort of godsend at the moment. They’d taken the shower together, with Keith tracing scars the same way cartographers map the earth, and Shiro’s lips finding all the places that had bruised during his initial run through the woods. Not a word was spoken. Just the physical confirmation of them being there, together. 

As Shiro hands him his cup, Keith licks his lips and finally finds his voice. “Welcome back.”

The smile that forms with those words is stunning enough to drop-kick Keith’s heart against his ribs. Goal scored, and the loss had never felt so sweet. “It’s good to be back.”

He returns the smile with one of his own, and notes with a touch of satisfaction that Shiro blushes after seeing it. Silence follows them after that. They stand there, side-by-side, with the moonlight running down their backs, bodies pressed close. There’s a lot Keith remembers, including the pain, but more than that, the joy. Even before Allura had lulled him into sleep, he remembers that feeling, more brilliant than the heartache that had preceded it.

“The roses. . .they were burning when I woke up. Each petal like its own flame. . .Were they always like that?”

The scent of smoke had come from them, mixed with a rose’s more sultry aroma. It hadn’t been an unpleasant smell, and even now, Shiro still carried it on his skin, as if it's simply a part of his natural being. Maybe it is.

Shiro gives a noncommittal shrug. “I thought you might like them this way. . .”

Keith lifts his head, uncertainty showing itself with the life of an eyebrow. “Is this your idea of romance?”

“To be honest, I’m not very good at romance.”

Keith starts laughing. Somehow, the idea doesn’t surprise him. “Good thing I have little experience to judge it on.”

“So, you’re saying your bar is pretty low?”

“Something like that.”

“No pressure, huh?”

Rising up on tip-toe, Keith plants a kiss on Shiro’s cheek. “Try not to fuck it up, Takashi.”

“Sure,” Shiro mutters, though he doesn’t sound the least bit displeased. Maybe a little put out after that kiss, though. “Here’s hoping my dismal attempts at wooing you don’t somehow trip and crash over that bar then. . .what with it being set so low.”

It’s hard to hate a man who can smile at you like Takashi Shirogane can. That unfettered, welcoming the world sort of smile that Keith realizes includes him in that as well. That he is part of Shiro’s world, just as the sun is part of the solar system. A central, life-giving piece of that world. Something seizes his heart at that moment. Joy, he thinks, the one that battled through self-doubt and soul-scarring fears. It doesn’t let go, though it's painful enough just admitting that happiness could be his. 

How integral Shiro is to that happiness.

Silence returns. Keith rests his head against Shiro’s shoulder and listens to the quiet of their surroundings. On the table, the lilies still glow silver. 

“Allura said she had broken two promises. . .”

Keith says it like an admission. Not of guilt, but of a long-held secret he had never been asked to keep.

Shiro hums at that, then takes a sip from his mug. “Gods aren’t supposed to intervene in this world or the human one without consulting the High Court. She’ll probably have her hands full with them for a while. . .”

“And the second one?”

It’s Shiro who invites the silence back into the room. For several minutes, he says nothing at all. Merely leans his body against Keith’s and brushes his lips against his temple. He exhales, the breath warm against Keith’s skin, and finally speaks. “To keep you safe.”

“But I’m right here.”

“You can't fix a fox’s soul orb without taking from another fox. . .”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that your soul is as much mine as it is yours.”

Keith ponders that a moment. Tipping his head up so he can look Shiro in the eyes, he states the matter as clearly as he sees it. “So, we’re soulmates. . .”

Surprise flits across Shiro’s face. Then, ever so slowly, a fox’s grin takes over his lips. “Something like that, I guess.”

“I can live with that.”

Laughter spills from Shiro, deep-throated but undeniably affectionate. Keith could wrap himself in that sound, and he would know that home is never more than a thought away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends my 2018 Big Bang piece! I really hope you all enjoyed, as I honestly had a lot of fun playing in this world with these boys. Aside from all the fantastical and horrific, one of the things I found in researching various folklore stories is how one creature could have a variety of different interpretations, changing from region to region, or even varying by who took down the tale. I hoped to convey a little of that in this, keeping to that tradition with myth and folktales, between the various stories/histories told even between the youkai characters themselves. I hope it all made sense in the end, as with all those stories, the cores of them carried constant themes between them.
> 
> Thank you all for reading this little fic of mine! Please feel free to drop me a line here or come find me over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ByMidnightFlame)! <3


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